The Old Curiosity Shop

Mrs. Jarley has Nell ride in an advertisement cart with George, wearing artificial flowers and distributing handbills for the show. The townspeople immediately love Nell, and young boys even leave small gifts for her at the waxwork doors. When the school audiences attend, Mrs. Jarley alters various figures’ dress so that a murderess becomes Hannah More, and Mary Queen of Scots becomes Lord Byron.

Nell continues to have nightmares of Quilp catching her. One night, Nell and her grandfather go for a walk and get caught in a hard rainstorm. They become lost and take shelter at the nearest inn, The Valiant Soldiers. The owner, James Groves, welcomes them in. The grandfather overhears a group of men playing cards, and he takes Nell’s wages so he can join the gambling.

The game lasts for more than three hours. Isaac List, the only winner, cleans out every other man at the table, and the grandfather loses all of Nell’s money. Nell uses the gold coin she sewed into her dress to buy them lodging and food for the evening, and she hides the change in her belongings. Later that night, another nightmare of Quilp wakes Nell at the exact moment someone walks into her room. She pretends to be asleep as she hears the person going through her things. Nell follows the thief’s shadow downstairs to her grandfather’s room. She discovers that it was her grandfather who snuck in, and that he robbed her of the change from her gold coin. The sight of him hunched over the coins, counting them greedily, terrifies Nell.

Nell returns to her room in a panic. In the morning, she mentions her stolen purse, but her grandfather acts ignorant of her even having any more money. Whether this ignorance is genuine or feigned, Nell cannot tell.

They return to the waxwork, and Mrs. Jarley asks Nell to distribute handbills at the girls’ school in town. The headmistress, Miss Monflathers, accuses Nell of being wicked for working at the waxworks. She is so cruel that Nell cries openly in the street. One young student, Miss Edwards, wipes Nell’s tears away only for the headmistress to scold her for her “attachment to the lower classes” (226). The narrator reveals that Miss Monflathers dislikes Miss Edwards because, though lowborn, she is an academically skilled and beautiful young woman; Monflathers also teaches a baronet’s daughter who is plain-faced and “dull in intellect” (227), and it frustrates her that Edwards outperforms her. Monflathers threatens Nell and Mrs. Jarley with arrest should they send more advertisements.

Nell returns to Jarley, who laughs at Monflathers’ threats. That night, the grandfather sneaks out to gamble. He returns with no winnings and not a single coin left. Nell gives him her wages so that he does not resort to stealing from Jarley.

Nell's old sorrows quickly return. During the school holidays, Nell watches Edwards with her little sister. She follows them for some time and feels a kinship with them. Mrs. Jarley announces her plan to switch the show’s target audience to the general public, since “the schools are gone, and the regular sightseers exhausted” (231). The show’s popularity still falters, so Mrs. Jarley announces the show will soon close and move to another town.