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. I cannot bear it,' said Rosa, at
once with a burst of tears, and a stamp of her little foot; 'I
shudder with horror of him, and I have come to you to protect me
and all of us from him, if you will?'
'I will,' cried Mr. Grewgious, with a sudden rush of amazing
energy.
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