The fire is in a rough place, but you can pass the night beside it safely, if you'll trust yourselves to me.

You see that red light yonder ?' They raised their eyes, and saw a lurid glare hanging in the dark sky; the dull reflection of some distant fire.
'It's not far,' said the man.

'Shall I take you there?
You were going to sleep upon cold bricks; I can give you a bed of warm ashes--nothing better.' Without waiting for any further reply than he saw in their looks, he took Nell in his arms, and bade the old man follow.
Carrying her as tenderly, and as easily too, as if she had been an infant, and showing himself both swift and sure of foot, he led the way through what appeared to be the poorest and most wretched quarter of the town; and turning aside to avoid the overflowing kennels or running waterspouts, but holding his course, regardless of such obstructions, and making his way straight through them.

They had proceeded thus, in silence, for some quarter of an hour, and had lost sight of the glare to which he had pointed, in the dark and narrow ways by which they had come, when it suddenly burst upon them again, streaming up from the high chimney of a building close before them.
'This is the place,' he said, pausing at a door to put Nell down and take her hand.

'Don't be afraid.