Kit enters to find the room dark, lit only by the fire in the fire place. He sees an old man rocking back and forth before the fire. He recognizes him as his former master and Nell’s grandfather. He tells Kit that Nell is in the other room, asleep. He thinks he hears her call, but Kit hears nothing.

Grandfather goes into her room and brings out her dress, pressing it to his lips. Mr. Garland, the single gentleman, the schoolmaster and the bachelor enter the house. Grandfather begins to cry, grasping his hair with both hands. The schoolmaster reaches out to him. They speak of Nell, and Grandfather goes once again into her room, returning to say he thought her hand moved. The single gentleman reveals himself to his brother, but Grandfather says that Nell is his only family and only friend.

Kit and the other gentleman enter the room to find Nell dead, lying on her bed surrounded by winter berries and green leaves. They weep for her, though she is past all help or need of it. The schoolmaster speaks of heaven where her spirit has taken flight and would not be recalled to life on earth if anyone dared. Nell had been dead for two days. Before that, she had drifted in and out of sleep, often talking of the friends she met on the journey with her grandfather. She speaks of Kit, wishing that there were some way that she could send him her love. After that, whenever she talks of Kit, she laughs as she used to.

At Nell’s funeral, the people of the village gather to weep and mourn, remembering the gentle girl who had graced their lives for so short a period of time but had made such a deep impression. The days and weeks pass. Grandfather goes to visit her grave often. One day in the spring, he does not return. They find him dead by Nell’s grave. He is buried by her side.

Sampson Brass is put in prison. He pleads for leniency, but all that he is allowed is to avoid transportation to another country by staying in a British jail. It is rumored that Sally Brass became either a sailor or a soldier, dressed as a man. When Quilp’s body is found, it is decided that he committed suicide and therefore was buried at a crossroads with a stake in his heart. Mrs. Quilp becomes rich, though she feels guilty for allowing her husband to join him in his deception. She remarries, but her husband refuses to allow her mother to live with them, so they live happily ever after. Mr. Abel marries and becomes a partner in the Notary’s office. Dick Swiveller marries the Marchioness after giving her the name of Sophronia Sphynx. As to her parentage, Dick thinks suspects that Sally Brass and Mr. Quilp might know the most about that. Fred Trent dies in Paris, his body disfigured. Kit and Barbara marry and have children. Kit often takes his children to visit the house where so much of his life began, the Old Curiosity Shop.