"Pickles, I ha' made up my mind--I ha' made it up quite," she said.
"Well?" asked Pickles.
"You gave me three days, Pickles, and the time 'ull be up to-morrow.
Well, I'll go to prison 'stead o' Peter Harris. I ha' that in my mind
which 'ull make it come uncommon light ter me. I'll go to prison 'stead
o' he."
CHAPTER XXX.
WHAT WAS HARRIS TO HER?
Pickles went up to the very small room where he slept, threw himself on
his bed, and fell a-wondering. For the first time in his life he was
completely at sea. What _did_ Cinderella mean? For a whole month now she
had been his special charge. He had rescued her; he had kept her in the
safe shelter of his mother's house; he had been, he considered, very
kind indeed to Cinderella. What a fate she would have had but for him!
Sent to prison for a crime of which she was absolutely innocent, her
whole future disgraced, blighted, ruined! All the time while he had been
hunting up Harris, and bringing his ingenious little mind to bear down
the full weight of his crime upon the guilty man, he had thought that no
amount of gratitude on Cinderella's part--nay, even a whole lifetime of
devotion--could scarcely repay all she owed him.
But now he kicked his legs impatiently and said to himself that it was
enough to provoke the best-natured boy in the universe. After all his
trouble, all his hard thoughts and anxious reflections, here was this
tiresome Cinderella refusing to be set free.
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