Page:Oliver Twist (1838) vol. 2.djvu/119

Rh Nancy, indeed, was not exempt from a failing which was very common among the Jew's female pupils, and in which, in their tenderer years they were rather encouraged than checked. Her disordered appearance, and a wholesale perfume of Geneva which pervaded the apartment, afforded strong confirmatory evidence of the justice of the Jew's supposition; and when, after indulging in the temporary display of violence above described, she subsided, first into dulness, and afterwards into a compound of feelings under the influence of which she shed tears one minute, and in the next gave utterance to various exclamations of "Never say die!" and divers calculations as to what might be the amount of the odds so long as a lady or gentleman were happy, Mr. Fagin, who had had considerable experience of such matters in his time, saw with great satisfaction that she was very far gone indeed. Having eased his mind by this discovery, and accomplished his twofold object of imparting to the girl what he had that night heard, and ascertaining with his own eyes that Sikes had