Chapter: Her situation was, indeed, one of no common trial and difficulty. While
she felt the most eager and burning desire to penetrate the mystery in
which Oliver's history was enveloped, she could not but hold sacred the
confidence which the miserable woman with whom she had just conversed,
had reposed in her, as a young and guileless girl.  Her words and
manner had touched Rose Maylie's heart; and, mingled with her love for
her young charge, and scarcely less intense in its truth and fervour,
was her fond wish to win the outcast back to repentance and hope.

They purposed remaining in London only three days, prior to departing
for some weeks to a distant part of the coast.  It was now midnight of
the first day.  What course of action could she determine upon, which
could be adopted in eight-and-forty hours? Or how could she postpone
the journey without exciting suspicion?

Mr. Losberne was with them, and would be for the next two days; but
Rose was too well acquainted with the excellent gentleman's
impetuosity, and foresaw too clearly the wrath with which, in the first
explosion of his indignation, he would regard the instrument of
Oliver's recapture, to trust him with the secret, when her
representations in the girl's behalf could be seconded by no
experienced person.  These were all reasons for the greatest caution
and most circumspect behaviour in communicating it to Mrs. Maylie,
whose first impulse would infallibly be to hold a conference with the
worthy doctor on the subject.  As to resorting to any legal adviser,
even if she had known how to do so, it was scarcely to be thought of,
for the same reason.  Once the thought occurred to her of seeking
assistance from Harry; but this awakened the recollection of their last
parting, and it seemed unworthy of her to call him back, when--the
tears rose to her eyes as she pursued this train of reflection--he
might have by this time learnt to forget her, and to be happier away.

Disturbed by these different reflections; inclining now to one course
and then to another, and again recoiling from all, as each successive
consideration presented itself to her mind; Rose passed a sleepless and
anxious night.  After more communing with herself next day, she arrived
at the desperate conclusion of consulting Harry.

'If it be painful to him,' she thought, 'to come back here, how painful
it will be to me!  But perhaps he will not come; he may write, or he
may come himself, and studiously abstain from meeting me--he did when
he went away.  I hardly thought he would; but it was better for us
both.'  And here Rose dropped the pen, and turned away, as though the
very paper which was to be her messenger should not see her weep.

She had taken up the same pen, and laid it down again fifty times, and
had considered and reconsidered the first line of her letter without
writing the first word, when Oliver, who had been walking in the
streets, with Mr. Giles for a body-guard, entered the room in such
breathless haste and violent agitation, as seemed to betoken some new
cause of alarm.

'What makes you look so flurried?' asked Rose, advancing to meet him.

'I hardly know how; I feel as if I should be choked,' replied the boy.
'Oh dear!  To think that I should see him at last, and you should be
able to know that I have told you the truth!'

'I never thought you had told us anything but the truth,' said Rose,
soothing him.  'But what is this?--of whom do you speak?'

'I have seen the gentleman,' replied Oliver, scarcely able to
articulate, 'the gentleman who was so good to me--Mr. Brownlow, that we
have so often talked about.'

'Where?' asked Rose.

'Getting out of a coach,' replied Oliver, shedding tears of delight,
'and going into a house.  I didn't speak to him--I couldn't speak to
him, for he didn't see me, and I trembled so, that I was not able to go
up to him.  But Giles asked, for me, whether he lived there, and they
said he did.  Look here,' said Oliver, opening a scrap of paper, 'here
it is; here's where he lives--I'm going there directly!  Oh, dear me,
dear me!  What shall I do when I come to see him and hear him speak
again!'

With her attention not a little distracted by these and a great many
other incoherent exclamations of joy, Rose read the address, which was
Craven Street, in the Strand.  She very soon determined upon turning
the discovery to account.

'Quick!' she said.  'Tell them to fetch a hackney-coach, and be ready
to go with me.  I will take you there directly, without a minute's loss
of time.  I will only tell my aunt that we are going out for an hour,
and be ready as soon as you are.'

Oliver needed no prompting to despatch, and in little more than five
minutes they were on their way to Craven Street.  When they arrived
there, Rose left Oliver in the coach, under pretence of preparing the
old gentleman to receive him; and sending up her card by the servant,
requested to see Mr. Brownlow on very pressing business.  The servant
soon returned, to beg that she would walk upstairs; and following him
into an upper room, Miss Maylie was presented to an elderly gentleman
of benevolent appearance, in a bottle-green coat.  At no great distance
from whom, was seated another old gentleman, in nankeen breeches and
gaiters; who did not look particularly benevolent, and who was sitting
with his hands clasped on the top of a thick stick, and his chin
propped thereupon.

'Dear me,' said the gentleman, in the bottle-green coat, hastily rising
with great politeness, 'I beg your pardon, young lady--I imagined it
was some importunate person who--I beg you will excuse me.  Be seated,
pray.'

'Mr. Brownlow, I believe, sir?' said Rose, glancing from the other
gentleman to the one who had spoken.

'That is my name,' said the old gentleman.  'This is my friend, Mr.
Grimwig.  Grimwig, will you leave us for a few minutes?'

'I believe,' interposed Miss Maylie, 'that at this period of our
interview, I need not give that gentleman the trouble of going away.
If I am correctly informed, he is cognizant of the business on which I
wish to speak to you.'

Mr. Brownlow inclined his head.  Mr. Grimwig, who had made one very
stiff bow, and risen from his chair, made another very stiff bow, and
dropped into it again.

'I shall surprise you very much, I have no doubt,' said Rose, naturally
embarrassed; 'but you once showed great benevolence and goodness to a
very dear young friend of mine, and I am sure you will take an interest
in hearing of him again.'

'Indeed!' said Mr. Brownlow.

'Oliver Twist you knew him as,' replied Rose.

The words no sooner escaped her lips, than Mr. Grimwig, who had been
affecting to dip into a large book that lay on the table, upset it with
a great crash, and falling back in his chair, discharged from his
features every expression but one of unmitigated wonder, and indulged
in a prolonged and vacant stare; then, as if ashamed of having betrayed
so much emotion, he jerked himself, as it were, by a convulsion into
his former attitude, and looking out straight before him emitted a long
deep whistle, which seemed, at last, not to be discharged on empty air,
but to die away in the innermost recesses of his stomach.

Mr. Browlow was no less surprised, although his astonishment was not
expressed in the same eccentric manner.  He drew his chair nearer to
Miss Maylie's, and said,

'Do me the favour, my dear young lady, to leave entirely out of the
question that goodness and benevolence of which you speak, and of which
nobody else knows anything; and if you have it in your power to produce
any evidence which will alter the unfavourable opinion I was once
induced to entertain of that poor child, in Heaven's name put me in
possession of it.'

'A bad one!  I'll eat my head if he is not a bad one,' growled Mr.
Grimwig, speaking by some ventriloquial power, without moving a muscle
of his face.

'He is a child of a noble nature and a warm heart,' said Rose,
colouring; 'and that Power which has thought fit to try him beyond his
years, has planted in his breast affections and feelings which would do
honour to many who have numbered his days six times over.'

'I'm only sixty-one,' said Mr. Grimwig, with the same rigid face. 'And,
as the devil's in it if this Oliver is not twelve years old at least, I
don't see the application of that remark.'

'Do not heed my friend, Miss Maylie,' said Mr. Brownlow; 'he does not
mean what he says.'

'Yes, he does,' growled Mr. Grimwig.

'No, he does not,' said Mr. Brownlow, obviously rising in wrath as he
spoke.

'He'll eat his head, if he doesn't,' growled Mr. Grimwig.

'He would deserve to have it knocked off, if he does,' said Mr.
Brownlow.

'And he'd uncommonly like to see any man offer to do it,' responded Mr.
Grimwig, knocking his stick upon the floor.

Having gone thus far, the two old gentlemen severally took snuff, and
afterwards shook hands, according to their invariable custom.

'Now, Miss Maylie,' said Mr. Brownlow, 'to return to the subject in
which your humanity is so much interested.  Will you let me know what
intelligence you have of this poor child:  allowing me to promise that
I exhausted every means in my power of discovering him, and that since
I have been absent from this country, my first impression that he had
imposed upon me, and had been persuaded by his former associates to rob
me, has been considerably shaken.'

Rose, who had had time to collect her thoughts, at once related, in a
few natural words, all that had befallen Oliver since he left Mr.
Brownlow's house; reserving Nancy's information for that gentleman's
private ear, and concluding with the assurance that his only sorrow,
for some months past, had been not being able to meet with his former
benefactor and friend.

'Thank God!' said the old gentleman.  'This is great happiness to me,
great happiness.  But you have not told me where he is now, Miss
Maylie.  You must pardon my finding fault with you,--but why not have
brought him?'

'He is waiting in a coach at the door,' replied Rose.

'At this door!' cried the old gentleman.  With which he hurried out of
the room, down the stairs, up the coachsteps, and into the coach,
without another word.

When the room-door closed behind him, Mr. Grimwig lifted up his head,
and converting one of the hind legs of his chair into a pivot,
described three distinct circles with the assistance of his stick and
the table; sitting in it all the time.  After performing this
evolution, he rose and limped as fast as he could up and down the room
at least a dozen times, and then stopping suddenly before Rose, kissed
her without the slightest preface.

'Hush!' he said, as the young lady rose in some alarm at this unusual
proceeding.  'Don't be afraid.  I'm old enough to be your grandfather.
You're a sweet girl.  I like you.  Here they are!'

In fact, as he threw himself at one dexterous dive into his former
seat, Mr. Brownlow returned, accompanied by Oliver, whom Mr. Grimwig
received very graciously; and if the gratification of that moment had
been the only reward for all her anxiety and care in Oliver's behalf,
Rose Maylie would have been well repaid.

'There is somebody else who should not be forgotten, by the bye,' said
Mr. Brownlow, ringing the bell.  'Send Mrs. Bedwin here, if you please.'

The old housekeeper answered the summons with all dispatch; and
dropping a curtsey at the door, waited for orders.

'Why, you get blinder every day, Bedwin,' said Mr. Brownlow, rather
testily.

'Well, that I do, sir,' replied the old lady.  'People's eyes, at my
time of life, don't improve with age, sir.'

'I could have told you that,' rejoined Mr. Brownlow; 'but put on your
glasses, and see if you can't find out what you were wanted for, will
you?'

The old lady began to rummage in her pocket for her spectacles. But
Oliver's patience was not proof against this new trial; and yielding to
his first impulse, he sprang into her arms.

'God be good to me!' cried the old lady, embracing him; 'it is my
innocent boy!'

'My dear old nurse!' cried Oliver.

'He would come back--I knew he would,' said the old lady, holding him
in her arms.  'How well he looks, and how like a gentleman's son he is
dressed again!  Where have you been, this long, long while?  Ah! the
same sweet face, but not so pale; the same soft eye, but not so sad.  I
have never forgotten them or his quiet smile, but have seen them every
day, side by side with those of my own dear children, dead and gone
since I was a lightsome young creature.'  Running on thus, and now
holding Oliver from her to mark how he had grown, now clasping him to
her and passing her fingers fondly through his hair, the good soul
laughed and wept upon his neck by turns.

Leaving her and Oliver to compare notes at leisure, Mr. Brownlow led
the way into another room; and there, heard from Rose a full narration
of her interview with Nancy, which occasioned him no little surprise
and perplexity.  Rose also explained her reasons for not confiding in
her friend Mr. Losberne in the first instance.  The old gentleman
considered that she had acted prudently, and readily undertook to hold
solemn conference with the worthy doctor himself.  To afford him an
early opportunity for the execution of this design, it was arranged
that he should call at the hotel at eight o'clock that evening, and
that in the meantime Mrs. Maylie should be cautiously informed of all
that had occurred.  These preliminaries adjusted, Rose and Oliver
returned home.

Rose had by no means overrated the measure of the good doctor's wrath.
Nancy's history was no sooner unfolded to him, than he poured forth a
shower of mingled threats and execrations; threatened to make her the
first victim of the combined ingenuity of Messrs. Blathers and Duff;
and actually put on his hat preparatory to sallying forth to obtain the
assistance of those worthies.  And, doubtless, he would, in this first
outbreak, have carried the intention into effect without a moment's
consideration of the consequences, if he had not been restrained, in
part, by corresponding violence on the side of Mr. Brownlow, who was
himself of an irascible temperament, and party by such arguments and
representations as seemed best calculated to dissuade him from his
hotbrained purpose.

'Then what the devil is to be done?' said the impetuous doctor, when
they had rejoined the two ladies.  'Are we to pass a vote of thanks to
all these vagabonds, male and female, and beg them to accept a hundred
pounds, or so, apiece, as a trifling mark of our esteem, and some
slight acknowledgment of their kindness to Oliver?'

'Not exactly that,' rejoined Mr. Brownlow, laughing; 'but we must
proceed gently and with great care.'

'Gentleness and care,' exclaimed the doctor.  'I'd send them one and
all to--'

'Never mind where,' interposed Mr. Brownlow.  'But reflect whether
sending them anywhere is likely to attain the object we have in view.'

'What object?' asked the doctor.

'Simply, the discovery of Oliver's parentage, and regaining for him the
inheritance of which, if this story be true, he has been fraudulently
deprived.'

'Ah!' said Mr. Losberne, cooling himself with his pocket-handkerchief;
'I almost forgot that.'

'You see,' pursued Mr. Brownlow; 'placing this poor girl entirely out
of the question, and supposing it were possible to bring these
scoundrels to justice without compromising her safety, what good should
we bring about?'

'Hanging a few of them at least, in all probability,' suggested the
doctor, 'and transporting the rest.'

'Very good,' replied Mr. Brownlow, smiling; 'but no doubt they will
bring that about for themselves in the fulness of time, and if we step
in to forestall them, it seems to me that we shall be performing a very
Quixotic act, in direct opposition to our own interest--or at least to
Oliver's, which is the same thing.'

'How?' inquired the doctor.

'Thus.  It is quite clear that we shall have extreme difficulty in
getting to the bottom of this mystery, unless we can bring this man,
Monks, upon his knees.  That can only be done by stratagem, and by
catching him when he is not surrounded by these people.  For, suppose
he were apprehended, we have no proof against him.  He is not even (so
far as we know, or as the facts appear to us) concerned with the gang
in any of their robberies. If he were not discharged, it is very
unlikely that he could receive any further punishment than being
committed to prison as a rogue and vagabond; and of course ever
afterwards his mouth would be so obstinately closed that he might as
well, for our purposes, be deaf, dumb, blind, and an idiot.'

'Then,' said the doctor impetuously, 'I put it to you again, whether
you think it reasonable that this promise to the girl should be
considered binding; a promise made with the best and kindest
intentions, but really--'

'Do not discuss the point, my dear young lady, pray,' said Mr.
Brownlow, interrupting Rose as she was about to speak. 'The promise
shall be kept.  I don't think it will, in the slightest degree,
interfere with our proceedings.  But, before we can resolve upon any
precise course of action, it will be necessary to see the girl; to
ascertain from her whether she will point out this Monks, on the
understanding that he is to be dealt with by us, and not by the law;
or, if she will not, or cannot do that, to procure from her such an
account of his haunts and description of his person, as will enable us
to identify him.  She cannot be seen until next Sunday night; this is
Tuesday.  I would suggest that in the meantime, we remain perfectly
quiet, and keep these matters secret even from Oliver himself.'

Although Mr. Losberne received with many wry faces a proposal involving
a delay of five whole days, he was fain to admit that no better course
occurred to him just then; and as both Rose and Mrs. Maylie sided very
strongly with Mr. Brownlow, that gentleman's proposition was carried
unanimously.

'I should like,' he said, 'to call in the aid of my friend Grimwig.  He
is a strange creature, but a shrewd one, and might prove of material
assistance to us; I should say that he was bred a lawyer, and quitted
the Bar in disgust because he had only one brief and a motion of
course, in twenty years, though whether that is recommendation or not,
you must determine for yourselves.'

'I have no objection to your calling in your friend if I may call in
mine,' said the doctor.

'We must put it to the vote,' replied Mr. Brownlow, 'who may he be?'

'That lady's son, and this young lady's--very old friend,' said the
doctor, motioning towards Mrs. Maylie, and concluding with an
expressive glance at her niece.

Rose blushed deeply, but she did not make any audible objection to this
motion (possibly she felt in a hopeless minority); and Harry Maylie and
Mr. Grimwig were accordingly added to the committee.

'We stay in town, of course,' said Mrs. Maylie, 'while there remains
the slightest prospect of prosecuting this inquiry with a chance of
success.  I will spare neither trouble nor expense in behalf of the
object in which we are all so deeply interested, and I am content to
remain here, if it be for twelve months, so long as you assure me that
any hope remains.'

'Good!' rejoined Mr. Brownlow.  'And as I see on the faces about me, a
disposition to inquire how it happened that I was not in the way to
corroborate Oliver's tale, and had so suddenly left the kingdom, let me
stipulate that I shall be asked no questions until such time as I may
deem it expedient to forestall them by telling my own story.  Believe
me, I make this request with good reason, for I might otherwise excite
hopes destined never to be realised, and only increase difficulties and
disappointments already quite numerous enough.  Come!  Supper has been
announced, and young Oliver, who is all alone in the next room, will
have begun to think, by this time, that we have wearied of his company,
and entered into some dark conspiracy to thrust him forth upon the
world.'

With these words, the old gentleman gave his hand to Mrs. Maylie, and
escorted her into the supper-room.  Mr. Losberne followed, leading
Rose; and the council was, for the present, effectually broken up.

 Rose pondered what to do with the information when Oliver came in and happily informed her that they had spotted Mr. Brownlow in the street, and now knew where he lived. Rose decided that the best thing to do was to talk to Mr. Brownlow so she and Oliver went there directly. Rose was received well, and when she told them her business and the story of what happened to Oliver, they were delighted. Oliver came in then, and was happy to see his old friends and they him. Mr. Brownlow, Rose, and Losberne then decided that it would be best if they trapped Monks and figured out what he knew. They agreed to bring the help of Mr. Grimwig and Harry Maylie into it, and get Nancy to identify the man for them

