CHAPTER XLIV.
The Old Spot--A Long History--Thou Shalt Not Steal--No Harm--Education--Necessity--Foam on Your Lip--Apples and Pears--What Will You Read--Metaphor--The Fur Cap--I Don't Know Him.
It was past mid-winter, and I sat on London Bridge, in company with the old apple-woman: she had just returned from the other side of the bridge, to her place in the booth where I had originally found her.

This she had done after repeated conversations with me; "she liked the old place best," she said, which she would never have left but for the terror which she experienced when the boys ran away with her book.

So I sat with her at the old spot, one afternoon past mid-winter, reading the book, of which I had by this time come to the last pages.

I had observed that the old woman for some time past had shown much less anxiety about the book than she had been in the habit of doing.

I was, however, not quite prepared for her offering to make me a present of it, which she did that afternoon; when, having finished it, I returned it to her, with many thanks for the pleasure and instruction I had derived from its perusal.
"You may keep it, dear," said the old woman, with a sigh; "you may carry it to your lodging, and keep it for your own." Looking at the old woman with surprise, I exclaimed, "Is it possible that you are willing to part with the book which has been your source of comfort so long ?" Whereupon the old woman entered into a long history, from which I gathered that the book had become distasteful to her; she hardly ever opened it of late, she said, or if she did, it was only to shut it again; also, that other things which she had been fond of, though of a widely different kind, were now distasteful to her.