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shouldn t wonder if you were right mr being now on the eve of casting off the pecuniary that have so long him said mrs and of a new career in a country where there is sufficient range for his abilities which in my opinion is exceedingly important mr s abilities peculiarly requiring space it seems to me that my family should the occasion by coming r ard what i could wish to see would be a meeting between mr and my family at a entertainment to be given at my family s where mr s health and prosperity being proposed by some leading member of my family mr might have an opportunity of developing his views my dear said mr with some heat it may be better for me to state distinctly at once that if i were to develop my views to that assembled group they would possibly be found of an offensive nature my impression being that your family are in the impertinent and in detail said mrs shaking her head no have never understood them and they have never understood you mr they have never understood you said his wife they may be incapable of it if so that is their misfortune i can pity their misfortune i am extremely sorry my dear said mr to have been betrayed into any expressions that might even have the appearance of being strong expressions all i would say is that i can go abroad without your family coming forward to favor me in short with a parting of their cold shoulders and that upon the whole i would rather leave england with such as i possess than derive any of it from that quarter at the same time my dear if they should condescend to reply to your communications which our joint experience renders most improbable far be it from me to be a barrier to your wishes the matter being thus settled mr gave mrs his arm and glancing at the heap of books and papers tying before on the table said they would leave us to ourselves which they did my dear said leaning back in his chair when they were gone and looking at me with an affection that made his eyes red and his hair all kinds of shapes i don t make any excuse for troubling you with business because i know you are deeply interested in it and it may divert your thoughts my dear boy i hope you are not worn out i am quite myself said i after a pause we have more cause to think of my aunt than of any one you know how much she has done surely surely answered who can forget it of david but even that is not all said i during the last fortnight some new trouble has vexed her and she has been in and out of london every day several times she has gone out early and been absent until evening last night with this journey before her it was almost midnight before she came home you know what her consideration for others is she will not tell me what has happened to distress her my aunt very pale and with deep lines in her face sat immovable until i had finished when some stray tears found their way to her cheeks and she put her hand on mine it s nothing trot it s nothing there will be no more of it you shall know by and by now my dear let us attend to these affairs i must do mr the justice to say began that although he would appear not to have worked to any good account for himself he is a most man when he works for other people i never saw such a fellow if he always goes on in the same way he must be about two hundred years old at present the heat into which he has been continually putting himself and the distracted and impetuous manner in which be has been day and night among papers and books to say nothing of the immense number of letters he has written me between this house and mr s and often across the table when he has been sitting opposite and might much more easily have spoken is quite extraordinary letters cried my aunt i believe he dreams in letters there s mr dick too said has been doing wonders as soon as he was released from overlooking whom he kept in such charge as i never saw exceeded he began to devote himself to mr and really his anxiety to be of use in the we have been making and his real usefulness in and and and carrying have been quite to us dick is a very remarkable man exclaimed my aunt and i always said he was trot you know it i am happy to say miss pursued at once with great delicacy and with great that in your absence mr has considerably improved of the that had fastened upon him for so long a time and of the dreadful apprehensions under which he had lived he is hardly the same person at times even his power of his memory and attention on particular points of business has recovered itself very much and he has been able to assist us in making some things clear that we should have found very difficult indeed if not hopeless without him but what i have to do is to come to results which are short enough not to gossip on all the hopeful circumstances i have observed or i shall never have done his natural manner and agreeable simplicity made it transparent that he said this to put us in good heart and to enable to hear her father mentioned with greater confidence but it was not the less pleasant for that now let me see said looking among the papers
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on the table having counted our funds and reduced to order a great mass the personal history and experience of confusion in the first place and of wilful confusion and in the second we take it to be clear that mr might now wind up his business and his agency trust and exhibit no deficiency or whatever oh thank heaven cried fervently but said the that would be left as his means of support and suppose the house to be sold even in saying this would be so small not exceeding in all probability some hundreds of pounds that perhaps miss it would be best to consider whether he might not retain his agency of the estate to which he has so long been his friends might advise him you know now he is free you yourself miss have considered it said looking to me and i feel that it ought not to be and must not be even on the recommendation of a friend to whom i am so grateful and owe so much i will not say that i recommend it observed think it right to suggest it no more i am happy to hear you say so answered steadily for it gives me hope almost assurance that we think alike dear mr and dear papa once free with what could i wish for i have always if i could have released him from the toils in which he was held to render back some little portion of the love and care i owe him and to devote my life to him it has been for years the utmost height of my hopes to take our future on myself will be the next great happiness the next to his release from all trust and responsibility that i can know have you thought how often i am not afraid dear i am certain of success so many people know me here and think kindly of me that i am certain don t me our wants are not many if i rent the dear old house and keep a school i shall be useful and happy the calm of her cheerful voice brought back so vividly first the dear old house itself and then my solitary home that my heart was too full for speech pretended for a little while to be busily looking among the papers next miss said that property of yours well sir sighed my aunt all i have got to say about it is that if it s gone i can bear it and if it s not gone i shall be glad to get it back it was originally i think eight thousand pounds said right replied my aunt i can t account for more than five said with an air of perplexity thousand do you mean inquired my aunt with uncommon composure or pounds five thousand pounds said it was all there was returned my aunt i sold three myself one i paid for your articles trot my dear and the other two i have by me when i lost the rest i thought it wise to say nothing about that of david sum but to keep it secretly for a rainy day i wanted to see how you would come out of the trial trot and you came out nobly self denying so did dick don t speak to me for find my nerves a little shaken nobody would have thought so to see her sitting upright with her folded but she had wonderful self command then i am delighted to say cried beaming with joy that we have recovered the whole money don t congratulate me anybody exclaimed my aunt how so sir you believed it had been by mr said of course i did said my aunt and was therefore easily silenced not a word and indeed said it was sold by virtue of the power of management he held from you but i needn t say whom sold or on whose actual signature it was afterwards pretended to mr by that rascal and proved too by figures that he had possessed himself of the money on general instructions he said to keep other and difficulties from the light mr being so weak and helpless in his hands as to pay you afterwards several sums of interest on a pretended principal which he knew did not exist made himself unhappily a party to the fraud and at last took the blame upon himself added my aunt and wrote me a mad letter charging himself with robbery and wrong unheard of upon which i paid him a visit early one morning called for a candle burnt the letter and told him if he ever could right me and himself to do it and if he couldn t to keep his own counsel for his daughter s sake if anybody speaks to me i leave the house we all remained quiet covering her face well my dear friend said my aunt after a pause and you have really the money back from him why the fact is returned mr had so completely hemmed him in and was always ready with so many new points if an old one failed that he could not escape from us a most remarkable circumstance is that i really don t think he grasped this sum even so much for the gratification of his which was as in the hatred he felt for he said so to me plainly he said he would even have spent as much to or injure ha said my aunt knitting her brows thoughtfully and glancing at and what s become of him i don t know he left here said with his mother who had been and and the whole time they went away by one of the london night and i know no more about him except that his
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to me at parting was audacious he seemed to consider himself hardly less indebted to me than to mr which i consider as i told him quite a compliment do you suppose he has any money i asked oh dear yes i should think so he shaking his head the personal history and experience seriously i should say lie must have a good deal in one way or other but i think you would find if you had an opportunity of observing his course that money would never keep that man out of mischief he is such an that whatever object he he must pursue it s his only compensation for the outward he puts upon himself always creeping along the ground to some small end or other he will always every object in the way and consequently will hate and suspect every body that comes in the most innocent manner between him and it so the crooked courses will become at any moment for the least reason or for none it s only necessary to consider his history here said to know that he s a monster of meanness said my aunt i don t know about that observed thoughtfully many people can be very mean when they give their minds to it and now touching mr said my aunt well really said cheerfully i must once more give mr high praise but for his having been so patient and for so long a time we never could have hoped to do anything worth speaking of and i think we ought to consider that mr did right for right s sake when we reflect what terms he might have made with himself for his silence i think so too said i now what would you give him inquired my aunt oh before you come to that said a little disconcerted i am afraid i thought it discreet to omit not being able to carry everything before me two points in making this lawless for it s perfectly lawless from beginning to end of a difficult affair those i u s and so forth which mr gave him for the advances he well they must be paid said my aunt tes but i don t know when they may be proceeded on or where they are rejoined opening his eyes and i anticipate that between this time and his departure mr will be constantly arrested or taken in execution then he must be constantly set free again and taken out of execution said my aunt what s the amount altogether why mr has entered the transactions he calls them transactions with great form in a book rejoined smiling and he makes the amount a hundred aud three pounds five now what shall we give him that sum included said my aunt my dear you and i can talk about division of it afterwards what should it be five hundred pounds upon this and i both struck in at once we both recommended a small sum in money and the payment without to mr of the claims as they came in we proposed that the family should have their passage and their and a hundred pounds and that mr s arrangement for the of the advances should be gravely entered into as it might be wholesome for him to suppose himself under that responsibility to this of david i added the suggestion that i should give some explanation of his character and history to mr who i knew could be relied on and that to mr should be quietly the discretion of advancing another hundred i further proposed to interest mr in mr by confiding so much of mr s story to him as i might feel justified in relating or might think expedient and to endeavour to bring each of them to bear upon the other for the common advantage we all entered warmly into these views and i may mention at once that the themselves did so shortly afterwards with perfect good will and harmony seeing that now glanced anxiously at my aunt again i reminded him of the second and last point to which he had you and your aunt will excuse me if i touch upon a painful theme as i greatly fear shall said hesitating but i think it necessary to bring it to your recollection on the day of mr s memorable a threatening allusion was made by to your aunt s husband my aunt retaining her stiff position and apparent composure assented with a nod perhaps observed it was mere impertinence no returned my aunt there was pardon me really such a person and at all in his power hinted yes my good friend said my aunt with a perceptible of his face explained that he had not been able to approach this subject that it had shared the fate of mr s in not being comprehended in the terms he had made that we were no longer of any authority with and that if he could do us or any of us any injury or annoyance no doubt he would my aunt remained quiet until again some stray tears found their way to her cheeks you are quite right she said it was very thoughtful to mention it can i or do anything asked gently nothing said my aunt i thank you many times trot my dear a vain threat let us have mr and mrs back and don t any of you speak to me with that she smoothed her dress and sat with her upright carriage looking at the door well mr and mrs said my aunt when they entered we have been discussing your with many apologies to you for keeping you out of the room so long and i tell you what arrangements we propose these she explained to the unbounded satisfaction of the family children and all being
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of battle lower see approach proud edward s power chains and slavery consigned to which and to a speedy end for mental torture is not beyond a certain point and that point i feel i have attained my course is run bless you bless you some future traveller visiting the personal history and ex from motives of curiosity not let us hope with sympathy the place of confinement allotted to in this city may and i trust will as he traces on its wall inscribed with a rusty nail the obscure w m p s i re open this to say that our common friend mr thomas who has not yet left us and is looking extremely well has paid the debt and costs in the noble name of miss and that myself and family are at the height of earthly bliss chapter tempest i now approach an event in my life so so awful so bound by an infinite variety of ties to all that has preceded it in these pages that from the beginning of my narrative i have seen it growing larger and larger as i advanced like a great tower in a plain and throwing its fore cast shadow even on the incidents of my childish days for years after it occurred i dreamed of it often i have started up so vividly impressed by it that its fury has yet seemed raging in my quiet room in the still night i dream of it sometimes though at lengthened and uncertain intervals to this hour i have an association between it and a stormy wind or the mention of a sea shore as strong as any of which my mind is conscious as plainly as i behold what happened i will try to write it down i do not it but see it done for it happens again before me the time drawing on rapidly for the sailing of the ship my good old nurse almost broken hearted for me when we first met came up to london i was constantly with her and her brother and the they being very much together but i never saw one evening when the time was close at hand i was alone with and her brother our conversation turned on ham she described to us how tenderly he had taken leave of her and how and quietly he had borne himself most of all of late when she believed he was most tried it was a subject of which the affectionate creature never tired and our interest in hearing the many examples which she who was so much with him had to relate was equal to hers in relating them my aunt and i were at that time the two cottages at i intending to go abroad and she to return to her house at we had a temporary lodging in garden as i walked home to it after this evening s conversation reflecting on what had passed between ham and myself when i was last at wavered in the original of david purpose i had formed of leaving a letter for when i should take leave of her uncle on board the ship and thought it would be better to write to her now she might desire i thought after receiving my communication to send some parting word by me to her unhappy lover i ought to give her the opportunity i therefore sat down in my room before going to bed and wrote to her i told her that i had seen him and that he had requested me to tell her what i have already written in its place in these sheets i faithfully repeated it i had no need to upon it if i had had the right its deep fidelity and goodness were not to be adorned by me or any man i left it out to be sent round in the morning with a line to mr to give it to her and went to bed at daybreak i was weaker than i knew then and not falling asleep until the sun was up lay late and next day was roused by the silent presence of my aunt at my bedside i felt it in my sleep as i suppose we all do feel such things trot my dear she said when i opened my eyes i couldn t make up my mind to disturb you mr is here shall he come i replied yes and he soon appeared r he said when we had shaken hands i em ly your letter sir and she writ this and begged of me fur to ask you to read it and if you see no hurt in t to be so kind as take charge on t have you read it said i he nodded sorrowfully i opened it and read as follows i have got your message oh what can i write to thank you for your good and blessed kindness to me i have put the words close to my heart i shall keep them till i die they are sharp thorns but they are such comfort i have prayed over them oh i have prayed so much when i find what you are and what uncle is i think what god must be and can cry to him good bye for ever now my dear my friend good bye for ever in this world in another world if am forgiven i may wake a child and come to you all thanks and blessings farewell this blotted with tears was the letter may i tell her as you t see no hurt in t and as you be so kind as take charge on t r said mr when i had read it unquestionably said i but i am thinking yes r i am thinking said i that i go down again to there s time and to spare to
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go and come back before the ship sails my mind is constantly running on him in his solitude to put this letter of her writing in his hand at this time and to enable you to tell her in the moment of parting that he has got it will be a kindness to both of them i solemnly accepted his commission dear good fellow and cannot discharge it too completely the journey is nothing to me i am restless and shall be better in motion i go down to night though he anxiously endeavoured to me i saw that he was of the personal history and experience my mind and this if i had required to be confirmed in my intention would have had the effect he went round to the coach office at my request and took the box seat for me on the mail in the evening i started by that conveyance down the road i had traversed under so many don t you think that i asked the coachman in the first stage out of london a very remarkable sky i don t remember to have seen one like it nor i not equal to it he replied that s wind sir there be mischief done at sea i expect before long it was a confusion here and there blotted with a colour like the colour of the smoke from damp fuel of flying clouds tossed up into most remarkable heaps suggesting greater heights in the clouds than there were depths below them to the bottom of the deepest hollows in the earth through which the wild moon seemed to plunge headlong as if in a dread disturbance of the laws of nature she had lost her way and were frightened there had been a wind all day and it was rising then with an extraordinary great sound in another hour it had much increased and the sky was more and it blew hard but as the night advanced the clouds closing in and the whole sky then very dark it came on to blow harder and harder it still increased until our horses could scarcely face the wind many times in the dark part of the night it was then late in september when the nights were not short the leaders turned about or came to a dead stop and we were often in serious apprehension that the coach would be blown over sweeping of rain came up before this storm like showers of steel and at those times when there was any shelter of trees or lee walls to be got we were fain to stop in a sheer impossibility of continuing the struggle when the day broke it blew harder and harder i had been in when the said it blew great guns but i had never known the like of this or anything approaching to it we came to very late having had to fight every inch of ground since we were ten miles out of london and found a cluster of people in the market place who had risen from their beds in the night fearful of falling chimneys some of these about the inn yard while we changed horses told us of great sheets of lead having been off a high church tower and flung into a bye street which they then blocked up others had to tell of country people coming in from neighbouring villages who had seen great trees lying torn out of the earth and whole scattered about the roads and fields still there was no in the storm but it blew harder as we struggled on nearer and nearer to the sea from which this mighty wind was blowing dead on shore its force became more and more terrific long before we saw the sea its spray was on our lips and salt rain upon us the water was out over miles and miles of the flat country adjacent to and every sheet and lashed its banks and had its stress of little setting heavily towards us when we came within sight of the sea the waves on the horizon caught at intervals above the rolling abyss were like glimpses of another shore op david with towers and buildings when at last we got into the town the people came out to their doors all and with streaming hair making a wonder of the mail that had come through such a night i put up at the old inn and went down to look at the sea staggering along the street which was strewn with sand and and with flying of sea foam afraid of falling and and holding by people i met at angry corners coming near the beach i saw not only the but half the people of the town lurking behind buildings some now and then the fury of the storm to look away to sea and blown sheer out of their course in trying to get back joining these groups i found women whose husbands were away in or boats which there was too much reason to think might have before they could run in anywhere for safety old sailors were among the people shaking their heads as they looked from water to sky and muttering to one another ship owners excited and uneasy children together and peering into older faces even stout disturbed and anxious their glasses at the sea from behind places of shelter as if they were surveying an enemy the tremendous sea itself when i could find sufficient pause to look at it in the agitation of the blinding wind the flying stones and sand and the awful noise confounded me as the high watery walls came rolling in and at their highest tumbled into surf they looked as if the least would the town as the receding wave swept back with a hoarse roar it seemed to out deep in the beach as if
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its purpose were to the earth when some white headed thundered on and dashed themselves to pieces before they reached the land every fragment of the late whole seemed possessed by the full might of its wrath rushing to be gathered to the composition of another monster hills were changed to valleys valleys with a solitary storm bird sometimes through them were lifted up to hills masses of water shivered and shook the beach with a sound every shape rolled on as soon as made to change its shape and place and beat another shape and place away the ideal shore on the horizon with its towers and buildings rose and fell the clouds flew fast and thick i seemed to see a and of all nature not finding ham among the people whom this memorable wind for it is still remembered down there as the greatest ever known to blow upon that coast had brought together i made my way to his house it was shut and as no one answered to my knocking i went by back ways and bye lanes to the yard where he worked learned there that he had gone to to meet some sudden of in which his skill was required but that he would be back to morrow morning in good time i went back to the inn and when i had washed and dressed and tried to sleep but in vain it was five o clock in the afternoon i had not sat five minutes by the coffee room fire when the waiter coming to stir it as an excuse for talking told me that two had gone down with all hands a few miles away and that some other ships had been seen laboring hard in the and trying in great distress to keep off shore mercy the personal history and experience on them and on all poor sailors said he if we had another night like the last i was very much depressed in spirits very solitary and felt an uneasiness in ham s not being there to the occasion i was seriously affected without knowing how much by late events and my long exposure to the fierce wind had confused me there was that in my thoughts and recollections that i had lost the clear arrangement of time and distance thus if i had gone out into the town i should not have been surprised i think to encounter some one who i knew must be then in london so to speak there was in these respects a curious in my mind yet it was busy too with all the the place naturally awakened and they were particularly distinct and vivid in this state the waiter s dismal intelligence about the ships immediately connected itself without any effort of my with my uneasiness about ham i was persuaded that i had an apprehension of his returning from by sea and being lost this grew so strong with me that i resolved to go back to the yard before i took my dinner and ask the boat if he thought his attempting to return by sea at all likely if he gave me the least reason to think so i would go over to and prevent it by bringing him with me i hastily ordered my dinner and went back to the yard i was none too soon for the boat with a lantern in his hand was the yard gate he quite laughed when i asked him the question and said there was no fear no man in his senses or out of them would put off in such a gale of wind least of all ham who liad been born to so sensible of this beforehand that i had really felt ashamed of doing what i was nevertheless impelled to do i went back to the inn if such a wind could rise i think it was rising the howl and roar the rattling of the doors and windows the in the chimneys the apparent rocking of the very house that sheltered me and the prodigious tumult of the sea were more fearful than in the morning but there was now a great darkness besides and that invested the storm with new terrors real and fanciful i could not eat i could not sit still i could not continue to anything something within me faintly answering to the storm without tossed up the depths of my memory and made a tumult in them yet in all the hurry of my thoughts wild running with the thundering sea the storm and my uneasiness regarding ham were always in the fore ground my dinner went away almost and i tried to refresh myself with a glass or two of wine in vain i fell into a dull slumber before the fire without losing my consciousness either of the uproar out of doors or of the place in which i was both became by a new and horror and when i awoke or rather when i shook off the that bound me in my chair my whole frame thrilled with and unintelligible fear i walked to and fro tried to read an old listened to the awful noises looked at faces scenes and figures in the fire at length of david the steady of the undisturbed clock on the wall tormented me to that degree that i resolved to go to bed it was re assuring on such a night to be told that some of the had agreed together to sit up until morning i went to bed exceedingly weary and heavy but on my lying down all such sensations vanished as if by magic and i was broad awake with every sense refined for hours i lay there listening to the wind and water imagining now that i heard shrieks out at sea now that i distinctly heard the firing of signal guns and
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now the fall of houses in the town i got up several times and looked out but could see nothing except the reflection in the window panes of the faint candle i had left burning and of my own haggard face looking in at me from the black void at length my restlessness attained to such a pitch that i hurried on my clothes and went down stairs in the large kitchen where i dimly saw bacon and ropes of hanging from the beams the were clustered together in various attitudes about a table purposely moved away from the great chimney and brought near the door a pretty girl who had her ears stopped with her apron and her eyes upon the door screamed when i appeared supposing me to be a spirit but the others had more presence of mind and were glad of an addition to their company one man referring to the topic they had been discussing asked me whether i thought the souls of the who had gone down were out in the storm i remained there i dare say two hours once i opened the and looked into the empty street the sand the sea weed and the of foam were driving by and i was obliged to call for assistance before i could shut the gate again and make it fast against the wind there was a dark gloom in my solitary chamber when i at length returned to it but i was tired now and getting into bed again fell off a tower and down a precipice into the depths of sleep i have an impression that for a long time though i dreamed of being elsewhere and in a variety of scenes it was always blowing in my dream at length i lost that feeble hold upon reality and was engaged with two dear friends but who they were i don t know at the siege of some town in a roar of the thunder of the cannon was so loud and incessant that i could not hear something i much desired to hear until i made a great exertion and awoke it was broad day eight or nine o clock the storm raging in of the and some one knocking and calling at my door what is the matter i cried a wreck close by i sprung out of bed and asked what wreck a from spain or laden with fruit and wine make haste sir if you want to see her it s thought down on the beach she go to pieces every moment the excited voice went along the staircase and i wrapped myself in my clothes as quickly as i could and ran into the street numbers of people were there before me all running in one direction o o the personal history and experience to the beach i ran the same way a good many and soon came facing the wild sea the wind might by this time have a little though not more sensibly than if the i had dreamed of had been diminished by the of half a dozen guns out of hundreds but the sea having upon it the additional agitation of the whole night was infinitely more terrific than when i had seen it last every appearance it had then presented bore the expression of being swelled and the height to which the rose and looking over one another bore one another down and rolled in in interminable hosts was most appalling in the difficulty of hearing anything but wind and waves and in the crowd and the unspeakable confusion and my first breathless efforts to stand against the weather i was so confused that i looked out to sea for the wreck and saw nothing but the foaming heads of the great waves a half dressed standing next me pointed with his bare arm a d arrow on it pointing in the same direction to the left then o great heaven i saw it close in upon us one mast was broken short off six or eight feet from the deck and lay over the side entangled in a of sail and and all that ruin as the ship rolled and beat which she did without a moment s pause and with a violence quite inconceivable beat the side as if it would it in some efforts were even then being made to cut this portion of the wreck away for as the ship which was on turned towards us in her rolling i plainly her people at work with especially one active figure with long curling hair conspicuous among the rest but a great cry which was audible even above the wind and water rose from the shore at this moment the sea sweeping over the rolling wreck made a clean breach and carried men heaps of such toys into the boiling the second mast was yet standing with the rags of a rent sail and a wild confusion of broken flapping to and fro the ship had struck once the same hoarsely said in my ear and then lifted in and struck again i understood him to add that she was parting and i could readily suppose so for the rolling and beating were too tremendous for any human work to suffer long as he spoke there was another great cry of pity from the beach four men arose with the wreck out of the deep clinging to the of the remaining mast uppermost the active figure with the curling hair there was a bell on board and as the ship rolled and dashed like a desperate creature driven mad now showing us the whole sweep of her deck as she turned on her beam ends towards the shore now nothing but her as she sprung wildly over and turned towards the sea the bell rang and its sound the of those unhappy men was
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was pale will you come over yonder the old remembrance that had been recalled to me was in his look i asked him terror stricken leaning on the arm he held out to support me r has a body come ashore he said yes do i know it i asked then he answered nothing but he led me to the shore and on that part of it where she and i had looked for shells two children on that part of it where some lighter fragments of the old boat blown down last night had been scattered by the wind among the ruins of the home he had wronged i saw him lying with his head upon his arm as i had often seen him lie at school chapter the new wound and the old no need to have said when we last spoke together in that hour which i so little deemed to be our parting hour no need to have said think of me at my best i had done that ever and could i change now looking on this sight they brought a hand and laid him on it and covered him with a of david flag and took him up and bore him on towards the houses all the men who carried him had known him and gone sailing with him and seen him merry and bold they carried him through the wild roar a hush in the midst of all the tumult and took him to the cottage where death was already but when they set the down on the threshold they looked at one another and at me and whispered i knew why they felt as if it were not right to lay him down in the same quiet room we went into the town and took our burden to the inn so soon as i could at all collect my thoughts i sent for and begged him to provide me a conveyance in which it could be got to london in the night i knew that the care of it and the hard duty of preparing his mother to receive it could only rest with me and i was anxious to discharge that duty as faithfully as i could i chose the night for the journey that there might be less curiosity when i left the town but although it was nearly midnight when i came out of the yard in a chaise followed by what i had in charge there were many people waiting at intervals along the town and even a little way out upon the road i saw more but at length only the bleak night and the open country were around me and the ashes of my youthful friendship upon a mellow autumn day about noon when the ground was by fallen leaves and many more in beautiful tints of yellow red and brown yet hung upon the trees through which the sun was shining i arrived at i walked the last mile thinking as i went along of what i had to do and left the carriage that had followed me all through the night awaiting orders to advance the house when i came up to it looked just the same not a blind was raised no sign of life was in the dull paved court with its covered way leading to the door the wind had quite gone down and nothing moved i had not at first the courage to ring at the gate and when i did ring my errand seemed to me to be expressed in the very sound of the bell the little parlour maid came out with the key in her hand and looking earnestly at me as she unlocked the gate said i beg your pardon sir are you ill i have been much agitated and am fatigued is anything the matter sir mr james hush said i yes something has happened that i have to break to mrs she is at home the girl anxiously replied that her mistress was very seldom out now even in a carriage that she kept her room that she saw no company but would see me her mistress was up she said and miss was with her what message should she take up stairs giving her a strict charge to be careful of her manner and only to carry in my card and say i waited i sat down in the drawing room which we had now reached until she should come back its former pleasant air of occupation was gone and the shutters were half closed the harp had not been used for many and many a day his picture as a boy was there the cabinet in which his mother had kept his letters was there the personal history and experience i wondered if she ever read them now if she would ever read them more the house was so still that i heard the girl s light step up stairs on her return she brought a message to the effect that mrs was an invalid a l could not come down but that if i would excuse her being in her chamber she would be glad to see me in a few moments i stood before her she was in his room not in her own i felt of course that she had taken to occupy it in remembrance of him and that the many tokens of his old sports and accomplishments by which she was surrounded remained there just as he had left them for the same reason she murmured however even in her reception of me that she was out of her own chamber because its aspect was to her infirmity and with her stately look the least suspicion of the truth at her chair as usual was from the first moment of her dark eyes resting on me i saw she knew i
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was the bearer of evil tidings the sprung into view that instant she withdrew herself a step behind the chair to keep her own face out of mrs s observation and me with a piercing gaze that never faltered never shrunk i am sorry to observe you are in mourning sir said mrs i am unhappily a said i you are very young to know so great a loss she returned i am grieved to hear it i am grieved to hear it i hope time will be good to you i hope time said i looking at her will be good to all of us dear mrs we must all trust to that in our heaviest misfortunes the earnestness of my manner and the tears in my eyes alarmed her the whole course of her thoughts appeared to stop and change i tried to command my voice in gently saying his name but it trembled she repeated it to herself two or three times in a low tone then addressing me she said with enforced calmness my son is ill very ill you have seen him i have are you reconciled i could not say yes i could not say no she slightly turned her head towards the spot where had been standing at her elbow and in that moment i said by the motion of my lips to dead that mrs might not be induced to look behind her and read plainly written what she was not yet prepared to know i met her look quickly but i had seen throw her hands up in the air with vehemence of despair and horror and then clasp them on her face the handsome lady so like o so like regarded me with a fixed look and put her hand to her forehead i her to be calm and prepare herself to bear what i had to tell but should rather have entreated her to weep for she sat like a stone figure am y w ia t op david c when i was last here i faltered miss told me he was sailing here and there the night before last was a dreadful one at sea if he were at sea that night and near a dangerous coast as it is said he was and if the vessel that was seen should really be the ship which said mrs come to me she came but with no sympathy or gentleness her eyes gleamed like fire as she confronted his mother and broke into a frightful laugh now she said is your pride appeased you now has he made to you with his life do you hear his life mrs fallen back stiffly in her chair and making no sound but a moan cast her eyes upon her with a wide stare aye cried herself passionately on the breast look at me moan and groan and look at me look here striking the at your dead child s handy work the moan the mother uttered from time to time went to my heart always the same always inarticulate and stifled always accompanied with an incapable motion of the head but with no change of face always proceeding from a rigid mouth and closed teeth as if the jaw were locked and the face frozen up in pain do you remember when he did this she proceeded do you remember when in his inheritance of your nature and in your of his pride and passion he did this and me for life look at me marked until i die with his high displeasure and moan and groan for what you made him miss i entreated her for heaven s sake i will speak she said turning on me with her lightning eyes be silent you look at me i say proud mother of a proud false son moan for your of him moan for your corruption of him moan for your loss of him moan for mine she clenched her hand and trembled through her spare worn figure as if her passion were killing her by inches you resent his she exclaimed you injured by his haughty temper you who opposed to both when your hair was grey the qualities which made both when you gave him birth you who from his cradle reared him to be what he was and what he should have been are you rewarded now for your years of trouble miss shame o cruel i tell you she returned i will speak to her no power on earth should stop me while i was standing here have i been silent all these years and shall i not speak now i loved him better than you ever loved him turning on her fiercely i could have loved him and asked no return if i had been his wife i could have been the slave of his for a word of love a year i should have been who knows it better than i you were proud selfish my love would have been devoted would have trod your paltry under foot with flashing eyes she stamped upon the ground as if she actually did it the personal history and experience look here she said striking the again with a hand when he grew into the better understanding of what he had done he saw it and repented of it i could sing to him and talk to him and show the that i felt in all he did and attain with labor to such knowledge as most interested him and i attracted him when he was and truest he loved me yes he did many a time when you were put off with a slight word he has taken me to his heart she said it with a pride in the midst of her frenzy for it was little less yet with an eager remembrance of it
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serviceable during the brief remainder the personal history and experience of his existence in jail he also requested as a last act of friendship that i would see his family to the parish and forget that such a being ever lived of course i answered this note by going down with the boy to pay the money where i found mr sitting in a corner looking darkly at the s officer who had effected the capture on his release he embraced me with the utmost and made an entry of the transaction in his pocket book being very particular i recollect about a i omitted from my statement of the total this momentous pocket book was a to him of another transaction on our return to the room upstairs where he accounted for his absence by saying that it had been occasioned by circumstances over which he had no control he took out of it a large sheet of paper folded small and quite covered with long sums carefully worked from the glimpse i had of them i should say that i never saw such sums out of a school book these it seemed were calculations of compound interest on what he called the principal amount of ten eleven and a half for various periods after a careful consideration of these and an elaborate estimate of his resources he had come to the conclusion to select that sum which represented the amount with compound interest to two years fifteen months and fourteen days from that date for this he had drawn a note of hand with great neatness which he handed over to on the spot a discharge of his debt in full as between man and man with many i have still a said mrs shaking her head that my family will appear on board before we finally depart mr evidently had his on the subject too but he put it in his tin pot and swallowed it if you have any opportunity of sending letters home on your passage mrs said my aunt you must let us hear from you you know my dear miss she replied i shall only be too happy to think that anyone expects to hear from us i shall not fail to correspond mr i trust as an old and familiar friend will not object to receive occasional intelligence himself from one who knew him when the were yet unconscious i said that i should hope to hear whenever she had an opportunity of writing please heaven there will be many such opportunities said mr the ocean in these times is a perfect fleet of ships and we can hardly fail to encounter many in running over it is merely crossing said mr trifling with his eye glass merely crossing the distance is quite imaginary i think now how odd it was but how wonderfully like mr that when he went from london to he should have talked as if he were going to the farthest limits of the earth and when he went from england to as if he were going for a little trip across the channel op david on the voyage i shall endeavour said mr occasionally to spin them a and the melody of my son will i trust be acceptable at the fire when mrs has her sea legs on an expression in which i hope there is no conventional she will give them i dare say little and i believe will be frequently observed our bows and either on the or the quarter objects of interest will be continually in short said mr with the old genteel air the probability is all will be found so exciting and aloft that when the look out stationed in the main top cries land ho we shall be very considerably astonished with that he flourished off the contents of his little tin pot as if he had made the voyage and had passed a first class examination before the highest naval authorities what chiefly hope my dear mr said mrs is that in some branches of our family we may live again in the old country do not frown i do not now refer to my own family but to our children however vigorous the said mrs shaking her head i cannot forget the parent tree and when our race to eminence and fortune i own i should wish that fortune to flow into the of my dear said mr must take her chance i am bound to say that she has never done much for me and that i have no particular wish upon the subject returned mrs there you are wrong you are going out to this distant to strengthen not to the between yourself and the in question my love rejoined mr has not laid me i repeat under that load of personal obligation that i am at all sensitive as to the formation of another returned mrs there i again say you are wrong you do not know your power it is that which will strengthen even in this step you are about to take the between yourself and mr sat in his elbow chair with his eyebrows raised half receiving and half mrs s views as they were stated but very sensible of their foresight my dear mr said mrs i wish mr to feel his position it appears to me highly important that mr should from the hour of his feel his position your old knowledge of me my dear mr will have told you that i have not the sanguine disposition of mr my tion is if i may say so eminently practical i know that this is a long voyage i know that it will involve many and i cannot shut my eyes to those facts but i also know what mr is i know the latent power of mr and therefore i consider it important that mr
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should feel his position my love he observed perhaps you will allow me to remark that it is barely possible that i do feel my position at the present moment i think not she rejoined not fully my dear the personal history and experience mr mr s is not a common case mr is going to a distant country expressly in order tbat he may be fully understood and appreciated for the first time i wish mr to take his stand upon that vessel s and firmly say this country i am come to conquer have you honours have you riches have you posts of profitable pecuniary let them be brought forward they are mine mr glancing at us all seemed to think there was a good deal in this idea i wish mr if i make myself understood said mrs in her tone to be the caesar of his own fortunes that my dear mr appears to me to be his true position from the first moment of this voyage i wish mr to stand upon that vessel s and say enough of delay enough of disappointment enough of limited means that was in the old country this is the new your bring it forward mr folded his arms in a resolute manner as if he were then stationed on the figure head and doing that said mrs feeling his am i not right in saying that mr will strengthen and not his with britain an important public character arising in that shall i be told that its influence will not be felt at home can i be so weak as to imagine that mr the rod of talent and of power in will be nothing in i am but a woman but i should be unworthy of myself and of my papa if i were guilty of such absurd weakness mrs s conviction that her arguments were gave a moral elevation to her tone which i think i had never heard in it before and therefore it is said mrs that i the more wish that at a future period we may live again on the parent soil mr maybe i cannot disguise from myself that the probability is mr will be a page of history and he ought then to be represented in the country which gave him birth and did not give him employment my love observed mr it is impossible for me not to be touched by your affection i am always willing to to your good sense what will be will be heaven forbid that i should grudge my native country any portion of the wealth that may be accumulated by our descendants that s well said my aunt nodding towards mr and i drink my love to you all and every blessing and success attend you mr put down the two children he had been nursing one on each knee to join mr and mrs in drinking to all of us in return and when he and the cordially shook hands as comrades and his brown face brightened with a smile i felt that he would make his way establish a good name aud be beloved go where he would even the children were instructed each to dip a wooden spoon into mr s pot and pledge us in its contents when this was done my aunt and rose and parted from the it was a sorrowful farewell they were all crying the children hung about op david to the last and we left poor mrs in a very distressed condition sobbing and weeping by a dim candle that must have made the room look from the river like a miserable light house i went down again next morning to see that they were away they had departed in a boat as early as five o clock it was a wonderful instance to me of the gap such make that although my association of them with the tumble down public house and the wooden stairs dated only from last night both seemed dreary and deserted now that they were gone in the afternoon of the next day my old nurse and i went down to we found the ship in the river surrounded by a crowd of boats a favourable wind blowing the signal for sailing at her mast head i hired a boat directly and we put off to her and getting through the little of confusion of which she was the centre went on board mr was waiting for us on deck he told me that mr had just now been arrested again a ad for the last time at the suit of and that in compliance with a request i had made to him he had paid the money which i repaid him he then took us down between decks and there any lingering fears i had of his having heard any of what had happened were by mr s coming out of the gloom taking his arm with an air of friendship and protection and telling me that they had scarcely been asunder for a moment since the night before last it was such a strange scene to me so confined and dark that at first i could make out hardly anything out by degrees it cleared as my eyes became more accustomed to the gloom and i seemed to stand in a picture by among the great beams and of the ship and the and and bundles and barrels and heaps of miscellaneous baggage lighted up here and there by dangling and elsewhere by the yellow day light down a or a were crowded groups of people making new taking leave of one another talking laughing crying eating and drinking some already settled down into the possession of their few feet of space with their little arranged and tiny children established on or in dwarf elbow chairs others despairing of a
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and wandering from babies who had but a week or two of life behind them to crooked old men and women who seemed to have but a week or two of life before them and from bodily carrying out soil of england on their boots to taking away of its and smoke upon their skins every age and occupation appeared to be crammed into the narrow compass of the decks as my eye glanced round this place i thought i saw sitting by an open port with one of the children near her a figure like s j it first attracted my attention by another figure parting from it with a kiss and as it glided calmly away through the disorder reminding me of but in the rapid motion and confusion and in the of my own thoughts i lost it again and only knew that the time was come when all visitors were being warned to leave the ship that my nurse was crying on a chest beside me and that mrs the personal history and experience assisted by some younger stooping woman in black was busily arranging mr s goods is there any last r said he is there any one forgotten thing afore we parts one thing said i he touched the younger woman i have mentioned on the shoulder and stood before me heaven bless you you good man cried i you take her with you she answered for him with a burst of tears i could speak no more at that time bat i wrung his hand and if ever i have loved and honored any man i loved and honored that man in my soul the ship was clearing fast of strangers the greatest trial that i had remained i told him what the noble spirit that was gone had given me in charge to say at parting it moved him deeply but when he charged me in return with many messages of affection and regret for those deaf ears he moved me more the time was come i embraced him took my weeping nurse upon my arm and hurried away oh deck i took leave of poor mrs she was looking about for her family even then and her last words to me were that she never would desert mr we went over the side into our boat and lay at a little distance to see the ship on her course it was then calm radiant sunset she lay between us and the red light and every line and was visible against the glow a sight at once so beautiful so mournful and so hopeful as the glorious ship lying still on the flushed water with all the life on board her crowded at the and there for a moment bare headed and silent i never saw silent only for a moment as the sails rose to the wind and the ship began to move there broke from all the boats three cheers which those on board took up and echoed back and which were echoed and re echoed my heart burst out when i heard the sound and beheld the waving of the hats and handkerchiefs and then i saw her then i saw her at her uncle s side and trembling on his shoulder he pointed to us with an eager hand and she saw us and waved her last to me aye beautiful and drooping cling to him with the utmost trust of thy bruised heart for he has clung to thee with all the might of his great love surrounded by the rosy light and standing high upon the deck apart together she clinging to him and he holding her they solemnly passed away the night had fallen on the hills when we were rowed ashore and fallen darkly upon me of david chapter absence it was a long and gloomy night that gathered on me haunted by the ghosts of many hopes of many dear many errors many sorrows and regrets i went away from england not knowing even then how great the shock was that i had to bear i left all who were dear to me and went away and believed that i had borne it and it was past as a man upon a field of battle will receive a mortal hurt and scarcely know that he is struck so i when i was left alone with my heart had no conception of the wound with which it had to strive the knowledge came upon me not quickly but little by little and grain by grain the desolate feeling with which i went abroad deepened and at first it was a heavy sense of loss and sorrow wherein i could distinguish little else by degrees it became a hopeless consciousness of all that i had lost love friendship interest of all that had been shattered my first trust my first affection the whole airy castle of my life of all that remained a ruined blank and waste lying wide around me unbroken to the dark horizon if my grief were selfish i did not know it to be so i mourned for my child taken from her blooming world so young i mourned for him who might have won the love and admiration of thousands as he had won mine long ago i mourned for the broken heart that had found rest in the stormy sea and for the wandering of the simple home where i had heard the night wind blowing when i was a child from the accumulated sadness into which i fell i had at length no hope of ever issuing again i from place to place carrying my burden with me everywhere t felt its whole weight now and i drooped beneath it and i said in my heart that it could never be lightened when this despondency was at its worst i believed that
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i should die sometimes i thought that i would like to die at home and actually turned back on my road that i might get there soon at other times i passed on farther away from city to city seeking i know not what and trying to leave i know not what behind it is not in my power to one by one all the weary phases of of mind through which i passed there are some dreams that can only be imperfectly and vaguely described and when i oblige myself to look back on this time of my life i seem to be recalling such a dream i see myself passing on among the of foreign towns palaces temples pictures castles fantastic streets the old abiding places of history and as a might bearing my painful load through all and hardly conscious of the objects as they fade p p the personal history and experience before me to everything but brooding sorrow was the night that fell on my heart let me look up from it as at last i did thank heaven and from its long sad wretched dream to dawn for many months i travelled with this ever darkening cloud upon my mind some blind reasons that i had for not returning home reasons then struggling within me vainly for more distinct expression kept me on my pilgrimage sometimes i had proceeded from place to place stopping nowhere sometimes i had lingered long in one spot i had had no purpose no soul within me anywhere i was in i had come out of italy over one of the great passes of the and had since wandered with a guide among the bye ways of the mountains if those awful had spoken to my heart i did not know it i had found and wonder in the dread heights and in the roaring torrents and the of ice and snow but as yet they had taught me nothing else i came one evening before sunset down into a valley where i was to rest in the course of my descent to it by the winding track along the mountain side from which i saw it shining far below i think some sense of beauty and tranquillity some softening influence awakened by its peace moved faintly in my breast i remember pausing once with a kind of sorrow that was not all oppressive not quite despairing i remember almost hoping that some better change was possible within me i came into the valley as the evening sun was shining on the remote heights of snow that closed it in like eternal clouds the of the mountains forming the in which the little village lay were richly green and high above this vegetation grew forests of dark fir the wintry snow drift like and the above these were range upon range of grey rock bright ice and smooth of pasture all gradually with the crowning snow dotted here and there on the mountain s side each tiny dot a home were lonely wooden cottages so by the towering heights that they appeared too small for toys so did even the clustered village in the valley with its wooden bridge across the stream where the stream tumbled over broken rocks and roared away among the trees in the quiet air there was a sound of distant singing shepherd voices but as one bright evening cloud floated along the mountain s side i could almost have believed it came from there and was not earthly music all at once in this serenity great nature spoke to me and soothed me to lay down my weary head upon the grass and weep as i had not wept yet since died had found a packet of letters awaiting me but a few minutes before and had strolled out of the village to read them while my supper was making ready other had missed me and i had received none for a long time beyond a line or two to say that i was well and had arrived at such a place i had not had fortitude or constancy to write a letter since i left home the packet was in my hand i opened it and read the writing of of david she was happy and useful was as she had hoped that was all she told me of herself the rest referred to me she gave me no advice she urged no duty on me she only told me in her own fervent manner what her trust in me was she knew she said how such a nature as mine would turn affliction to good she knew how trial and emotion would and strengthen it she was sure that in my every purpose i should gain a firmer and a higher tendency through the grief i had undergone she who so in my fame and so looked forward to its well knew that i would labor on she knew that in me sorrow could not be weakness but must be strength as the endurance of my childish days had done its part to make me what i was so greater would nerve me on to be yet better than i was and so as they had taught me would i teach others she commended me to god who had taken my innocent darling to his rest and in her affection cherished me always and was always at my side go where i would proud of what i had done but infinitely yet of what i was reserved to do i put the letter in my breast and thought what had i been an hour when i heard the voices die away and saw the quiet evening cloud grow dim and all the colors in the valley fade and the golden snow upon the mountain tops become a remote part of the pale night sky yet
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the flower he was was an place to rise in it had such a long established solemn elderly air i glanced about the room which had had its floor no doubt in exactly the same manner when the chief waiter was a boy if he ever was a boy which appeared improbable and at the shining tables where i saw myself reflected in depths of old mahogany and at the lamps without a flaw in their or cleaning and at the comfortable green curtains with their pure brass rods the boxes and at the two large coal fires brightly burning and at the rows of as if with the consciousness of pipes of expensive old port wine below and both england and the law appeared to me to be very difficult indeed to be taken by storm i went up to my bed room to change my wet clothes and the vast extent of that old apartment which was over the leading to the inn i remember and the of the four post and the gravity of the of drawers all seemed to unite in sternly frowning on the fortunes of or on any such daring youth i came down again to my dinner and even the slow comfort of the meal and the orderly silence of the place which was bare of guests the long not yet being over were eloquent on the audacity of and his small hopes of a for twenty years to come i had seen nothing like this since i went away and it quite dashed my hopes for my friend the chief waiter had had enough of me he came near me no more but devoted himself to an old gentleman in long to meet whom a pint of special port seemed to come out of the cellar of its own accord for he gave no order the second waiter informed me in a whisper that this old gentleman was a retired living in the square and worth a of money which it was expected he would leave to his s daughter likewise that it was that he had a service of plate in a all with lying by though more than one spoon and a fork had never yet been beheld in his chambers by mortal the personal history and experience vision by this time i quite gave up for lost and settled in my own mind that there was no hope for him being very anxious to see the dear old fellow nevertheless i despatched my dinner in a manner not at all calculated to raise me in the opinion of the chief waiter and hurried out by the back way number two in the court was soon reached and an inscription on the door post informing me that mr occupied a set of chambers on the top story i ascended the staircase a crazy old staircase i found it to be feebly lighted on each landing by a club headed little oil dying away in a little of dirty glass in the course of my stumbling up stairs i fancied i heard a pleasant sound of laughter and not the laughter of an attorney or or attorney s clerk or s clerk but of two or three merry girls happening however as i stopped to listen to put my foot in a hole where the honorable society of gray s inn had left a plank deficient i fell down with some noise and when i recovered my footing all was silent groping my way more carefully for the rest of the journey my heart beat high when i found the outer door which had mr painted on it open i knocked a considerable within ensued but nothing else i therefore knocked again a small sharp looking lad half and half clerk who was very much out of breath but who looked at me as if he defied me to prove it presented himself is mr within said i yes sir but he s engaged i want to see him after a moment s survey of me the sharp looking lad decided to let me in and opening the door wider for that purpose admitted me first into a little closet of a hall and next into a little sitting room where i came into the presence of my old friend also out of breath seated at a table and bending over papers good god cried looking up it s and rushed into my arms where i held him tight all well my dear all well my dear dear and nothing but good news we cried with pleasure both of us my dear fellow said his hair in his excitement which was a most unnecessary operation my dearest my long lost and most welcome friend how glad i am to see you how brown you are how glad i am upon my life and honor i never was so rejoiced my beloved never was equally at a loss to express my emotions i was quite unable to speak at first my dear fellow said and grown so famous my glorious good gracious me when did you come where have you come from what have you been doing never pausing for an answer to anything he said who had clapped me into an easy chair by the fire all this time stirred the fire with one hand and pulled at my neck with the other under some wild delusion that it was a great coat without putting of david down the he now me again and i him and both laughing and both wiping our eyes we both sat down and shook hands across the hearth to think said that you should have been so nearly coming home as you must have been my dear old boy and not at the ceremony what ceremony my dear good gracious me cried opening his eyes in his old way didn t you
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get my last letter certainly not if it referred to any ceremony why my dear said sticking his hair upright with both hands and then putting his hands on my knees i am married married i cried joyfully lord bless me yes said by the to down in why my dear boy she s behind the window curtain look here to my amazement the dearest girl in the world came at that same instant laughing and blushing from her place of concealment and a more cheerful amiable honest happy bright looking bride i believe as i could not help saying on the spot the world never saw i kissed her as an old acquaintance should and wished them joy with all my might of heart dear me said what a delightful re union this is you are so extremely brown my dear god bless my soul how happy i am and so am i said i and i am sure i am said the blushing and laughing we are all as happy as possible said even the girls are happy dear me i declare i forgot them forgot said i the girls said s sisters they are staying witb us they have come to have a peep at london the fact is when was it you that tumbled up stairs it was said i laughing well then when you tumbled up stairs said i was with the girls in point of fact we were playing at in the corner but as that wouldn t do in westminster hall and as it wouldn t look quite professional if they were seen by a they and they are now listening i have no doubt said glancing at the door of another room i am sorry said i laughing afresh to have occasioned such a upon my word rejoined greatly delighted if you had seen them running away and running back again after you had knocked to pick up the they had dropped out of their hair and going on in the manner you wouldn t have said so my love will you fetch the girls tripped away and we heard her received in the adjoining room with a peal of laughter the personal history and experience musical isn t it my dear said it s very agreeable to hear it quite lights up these old rooms to an unfortunate bachelor of a fellow who has lived alone all his life you know it s positively delicious it s charming poor things they have had a great loss in who i do assure you is and ever was the dearest girl and it me beyond expression to find them in such good spirits the society of girls is a very delightful thing it s not professional but it s very delightful observing that he slightly faltered and that in the goodness of his heart he was fearful of giving me some pain by what he had said i expressed my with a that evidently relieved and pleased him greatly but then said our domestic arrangements are to say the truth quite altogether my dear even s being here is and we have no other place of abode we have put to sea in a but we are quite prepared to rough it and s an extraordinary manager you be surprised how those girls are away i am sure i hardly know how it s done are many of the young ladies with you i inquired the eldest the beauty is here said in a low confidential voice and s here the one i mentioned to you as having something the matter with her you know immensely better and the two youngest that educated are with us and s here indeed cried i yes said now the whole set i mean the chambers is only three rooms but for the girls in the most wonderful way and they sleep as comfortably as possible three in that room said pointing two in that i could not help glancing round in search of the accommodation remaining for mr and mrs understood me well said we are prepared to rough it as i said just now and we did a bed last week upon the floor here but there s a little room in the roof a very nice room when you re up there which herself to surprise me and that s our room at present it s a capital little sort of place there s quite a view from it and you are happily married at last my dear said i how rejoiced i am thank you my dear said as we shook hands once more yes i am as happy as it s possible to be there s your old friend you see said nodding triumphantly at the flower pot and stand and there s the table with the marble top all the other furniture is plain and serviceable you perceive and as to plate lord bless you we haven t so much as a tea spoon all to be earned said i cheerfully exactly so replied all to be earned of course we have something in the shape of tea because we stir our tea but they re metal of david the silver will be the brighter when it comes said i the very thing we say cried you see my dear falling again into the low confidential tone after i had delivered my argument in which did me great service with the profession i went down into and had some serious conversation in private with the i dwelt upon the fact that who i do assure you is the dearest girl i am certain she is said i she is indeed rejoined but i am afraid i am wandering from the subject did i mention the you said that you dwelt upon the fact true upon the fact that
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and i had been engaged for a long period and that with the permission of her parents was more than content to take me in short said with his old frank smile on our present metal footing very well i then proposed to the who is a most excellent clergyman and ought to be a bishop or at least ought to have enough to live upon without himself that if i could turn the corner say of two hundred and fifty pounds in one year and could see my way pretty clearly to that or something better next year and could plainly furnish a little place hke this besides then and in that case and i should be united i took the liberty of representing that we had been patient for a good many years and that the circumstance of s being useful at home ought not to operate with her affectionate parents against her establishment in life don t you see certainly it ought not said i i am glad you think so rejoined because without any on the i do think parents and brothers and so forth are sometimes rather selfish in such cases well i also pointed out that my most earnest desire was to be useful to the family and that if i got on in the world and anything should happen to him i refer to the i understand said i or to mrs it would be the utmost gratification of my wishes to be a parent to the girls he replied in a most admirable manner exceedingly flattering to my feelings and undertook to obtain the consent of mrs to this arrangement they had a dreadful time of it with her it mounted from her legs into her chest and then into her what mounted i asked her grief replied with a serious look her feelings generally as i mentioned on a former occasion she is a very superior woman but has lost the use of her limbs whatever occurs to her usually settles in her legs but on this occasion it mounted to the chest and then to the head and in short pervaded the whole system in a most alarming manner however they brought her through it by and affectionate attention and we were married yesterday six weeks you have no idea what a monster i felt when i saw the whole family crying and fainting away in every direction mrs the personal history and experience couldn t see me before we couldn t forgive me then for her of her child but she is a good creature and has done so since i had a delightful letter from her only this morning and in short my dear friend said i you feel as as you deserve to feel oh that s your partiality laughed but indeed i am in a most state i work hard and read law i get up at five every morning and don t mind it at all i hide the girls in the day time and make merry with them in the evening and i assure you i am quite sorry that they are going home on tuesday which is the day before the first day of term but here said breaking off in his confidence and speaking aloud are the girls mr miss miss miss margaret and they were a perfect nest of roses they looked so wholesome and fresh they were all pretty and miss was very handsome but there was a loving cheerful fireside quality in s bright looks which was better than that and which assured me that my friend had chosen well we all sat round the fire while the sharp boy who i now divined had lost his breath in putting the papers out cleared them away again and produced the tea things after that he retired for the night shutting the outer door upon us with a bang mrs with perfect pleasure and composure beaming from her household eyes having made the tea then quietly made the toast as she sat in a corner by the fire she had seen she told me while she was tom had taken her down into for a wedding trip and there she had seen my aunt too and both my aunt and were well and they had all talked of nothing but me tom had never had me out of his thoughts she really believed all the time i had been away tom was the authority for everything tom was evidently the idol of her life never to be shaken on his by any commotion always to be believed in and done homage to with the whole faith of her heart come what might the deference which both she and showed towards the beauty pleased me very much i don t know that i thought it very reasonable but i thought it very delightful and essentially a part of their character if ever for an instant missed the that were still to be won i have no doubt it was when he handed the beauty her tea if his sweet tempered wife could have got up any self assertion against any one i am satisfied it could only have been because she was the beauty s sister a few slight indications of a rather and capricious manner which i observed in the beauty were considered by and his wife as her and natural if she had been born a queen bee and they laboring bees they could not have been more satisfied of that but their self forgetfulness charmed me their pride in these girls and their submission of themselves to all their was the little testimony to their own worth i could have desired to see if were addressed as a darling once in the course of that evening and to bring something here or carry something there of
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david or take something up or put something down or find something or fetch something he was so addressed by one or other of his sisters in law at least twelve times in an hour neither could they do anything without somebody s hair fell down and nobody but could put it up somebody forgot how a particular tune went and nobody but could hum that tune right somebody wanted to the name of a place in and only knew it something was wanted to be written home and alone could be trusted to write before breakfast in the morning somebody broke down in a piece of knitting and no one but was able to put the in the right direction they were entire of the place and and waited on them how many children could have taken care of in her time i can t imagine but she seemed to be famous for knowing every sort of song that ever was addressed to a child in the english tongue and she sang to order with the little voice in the world one after another every sister issuing directions for a different tune and the beauty generally striking in last so that i was quite fascinated the best of all was that in the midst of their all the sisters had a great tenderness and respect both for and i am sure when took my leave and was coming out to walk with me to the coffee house i thought i had never seen an obstinate head of hair or any other head of hair rolling about in such a shower of kisses altogether it was a scene i could not help dwelling on with pleasure for a long time after i got back and had wished good night if i had beheld a thousand roses blowing in a top set of chambers in that withered gray s inn they could not have brightened it half so much the idea of those girls among the dry law and the offices and of the tea and toast and children s songs in that grim atmosphere of and red dusty brief and paper law reports and bills of costs seemed almost as pleasantly fanciful as if i had dreamed that the s famous family had been admitted on the roll of and had brought the talking bird the singing tree and the golden water into gray s inn hall somehow i found that i had taken leave of for the night and come back to the coffee house with a great change in my despondency about him i began to think he would get on in spite of all the many orders of chief in england drawing a chair before one of the coffee room fires to think about him at my leisure i gradually fell from the consideration of his happiness to tracing prospects in the live coals and to thinking as they broke and changed of the principal and that had marked my life i had not seen a coal fire since i had left england three years ago though many a wood fire had i watched as it into ashes and mingled with the heap upon the hearth which not figured to me in my despondency my own dead hopes i could think of the past now gravely but not bitterly and could contemplate the future in a brave spirit home in its best sense was for me no more she in whom might have inspired a dearer love i had taught to be my sister she would marry and would have new the personal history and experience on her tenderness and in doing it would never know the love for her that had grown up in my heart jt was right that i should pay the of my headlong passion what i i had sown i was thinking and had i truly my heart to this and could i resolutely bear it and calmly hold the place in her home which she had calmly held in mine when i found my eyes resting on a countenance that might have arisen out of the fire in its association with my early little mr the doctor to whose good offices i was indebted in the very first chapter of this history sat reading a newspaper in the shadow of an opposite corner he was tolerably stricken in years by this time but being a mild meek calm little man had worn so easily that i thought he looked at that moment just as he might have looked when he sat in our parlor waiting for me to be born mr had left six or seven years ago and i had never seen him since he sat placidly the newspaper with his little head on one side and a glass of warm at his elbow he was so extremely in his manner that he seemed to to the very newspaper for taking the liberty of reading it i walked up to where he was sitting and said how do you do mr he was greatly fluttered by this unexpected address from a stranger and replied in his slow way i thank you sir you are very good thank you sir i hope you are well you don t remember me said i well sir returned mr smiling very meekly and shaking his head as he surveyed me i have a kind of an impression that something in your countenance is familiar to me sir but i couldn t lay my hand upon your name really and yet you knew it long before i knew it myself i returned did i indeed sir said mr is it possible that i had the honor sir of when yes said i dear me cried mr but no doubt you are a good deal changed since then sir probably said i well sir observed mr i hope you excuse me if i am compelled
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to ask the favor of your name on my telling him my name he was really moved he quite shook hands with me which was a violent proceeding for him his usual course being to slide a little fish an inch or two in advance of his hip and the greatest when anybody with it even now he put his hand in his coat pocket as soon as he could it and seemed relieved when he had got it safe back dear me sir said mr surveying me with his head on one side and it s mr is it well sir i think i should have known you if i had taken the liberty of looking more closely at you there s a strong resemblance between you and your poor father sir i never had the happiness of seeing my father i observed very true sir said mr in a soothing tone and very of david much to be it was on all accounts we are not ignorant sir said mr slowly shaking his little head again down in our part of the country of your fame there must be great excitement here sir said mr tapping himself on the forehead with his forefinger you must find it a trying occupation sir what is your part of the country now i asked myself near him i am established within a few miles of bury st sir said mr mrs coming into a little property in that neighbourhood under her father s will i bought a practice down there in which you will be glad to hear i am doing well my daughter is growing quite a tall now sir said mr giving his httle head another little shake her mother let down two in her only last week such is time you see sir as the little man put his now empty glass to his lips when he made this reflection i proposed to him to have it and i would keep him company with another well sir he returned in his slow way it s more than i am accustomed to but i can t deny myself the pleasure of your conversation it seems but yesterday that i had the honor of attending you in the you came through them sir i acknowledged this compliment and ordered the which was soon produced quite an uncommon said mr stirring it but i can t resist so extraordinary an occasion you have no family sir i shook my head i was aware that you sustained a sir some time ago said mr i heard it from your father in law s sister very decided character there sir why yes said i decided enough where did you see her mr are you not aware sir returned mr with his smile that your father in law is again a neighbour of mine no said i he is indeed sir said mr married a young lady of that part with a very good little property poor thing and this action of the brain now sir don t you find it fatigue you said mr looking at me like an admiring i that question and returned to the i was of his being married again do you attend the family i asked not regularly i have been called in he replied strong development of the organ of firmness in mr and his sister sir i replied with such an expressive look that mr was by that and the together to give his head several short shakes and thoughtfully exclaim ah dear me we remember old times mr and the brother and sister are pursuing their old course are they said i well sir replied mr a medical man being so much in families ought to have neither eyes nor ears for anything but his pro the personal history and experience still i must say they are very severe sir both as to this life and the next the next will be regulated without much reference to them i dare say i returned what are they doing as to this mr shook his head stirred his and it she was a charming woman sir he observed in a plaintive manner the present mrs a charming woman indeed sir said mr as amiable i am sure as it was possible to be mrs s opinion is that her spirit has been entirely broken since her marriage and that she is all but melancholy mad and the ladies observed mr are great sir i suppose she was to be subdued and broken to their detestable mould heaven help her said i and she has been well sir there were violent quarrels at first i assure you said mr but she is quite a shadow now would it be considered forward if i was to say to you sir in confidence that since the sister came to help the brother and sister between them have nearly reduced her to a state of i told him i could easily believe it i have no hesitation in saying said mr himself with another of between you and me sir that her mother died of it or that tyranny gloom and worry have made mrs nearly she was a lively young woman sir before marriage and their gloom and destroyed her they go about with her now more like her than her husband and sister in law that was mrs s remark to me only last week and i assure you sir the ladies are great mrs herself is a great observer does he gloomily profess to be i am ashamed to use the word in such association religious still i inquired you anticipate sir said mr his eyelids getting quite red with the unwonted in which he was indulging one of mrs s most impressive remarks mrs he proceeded in the and manner quite me by pointing out that mr sets up an image of himself and
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calls it the divine nature you might have knocked me down on the flat of my back sir with the feather of a pen i assure you when mrs said so the ladies are great sir said i to his extreme delight i am very happy to receive such support in my opinion sir he rejoined it is not often that i venture to give a non medical opinion i assure you mr public addresses sometimes and it is said in short sir it is said by mrs that the darker tyrant he has lately been the more ferocious is his doctrine i believe mrs to be perfectly right said i mrs does go so far as to say pursued the of little men much encouraged that what such people their religion is a vent for their bad and and do you know i must say sir he continued mildly laying his head on one side that i don t find authority for mr and miss in the new testament of david i never found it either said i in the meantime sir said mr they are much disliked and as they are very free in everybody who them to we really have a good deal of going on in our neighbourhood however as mrs say sir they undergo a continual punishment for they are turned inward to feed upon their own hearts and their own hearts are very bad feeding now sir about that brain of yours if you ll excuse my returning to it don t you expose it to a good deal of excitement sir i found it not difficult in the excitement of mr s own brain under his of to divert his attention from this topic to his own affairs on which for the next half hour he was quite giving me to understand among other pieces of information that he was then at the gray s inn coffee house to lay his professional evidence before a commission of touching the state of mind of a patient who had become from excessive drinking and i assure you sir he said i am extremely nervous on such occasions i could not support being what is called sir it would quite me do you know it was some time before i recovered the conduct of that alarming lady on the night of your birth mr i told him that i was going down to my aunt the of that night early in the morning and that she was one of the most and excellent of women as he would know full well if he knew her better the mere notion of the possibility of his ever seeing her again appeared to him he replied with a small pale smile is she so indeed sir and almost immediately called for a candle and went to bed as if he were not quite safe anywhere else he did not actually under the but i should think his placid little pulse must have made two or three more beats in a minute than it had done since the great night of my aunt s disappointment when she struck at him with her bonnet thoroughly tired i went to bed too at midnight passed the next day on the coach burst safe and sound into my aunt s old parlor while she was at tea she wore spectacles now and was received by her and mr dick and dear old who acted as housekeeper with open arms and tears of joy my aunt was amused when we began to talk by my account of my meeting with mr and of his holding her in such dread remembrance and both she and had a great deal to say about my poor mother s second husband and that woman of a sister on whom i think no pain or penalty would have induced my aunt to bestow any christian or proper name or any other a o thk personal history a n d ence my aunt and i when we were left alone talked far into the night how the never wrote home otherwise than cheerfully and how mr had actually divers small sums of money on account of those pecuniary in reference to which he had been so business uke as between man and man how returning into my aunt s service when she came back to had finally carried out her of mankind by entering into with a tavern keeper and how my aunt had finally set tier seal on the same great principle by and the bride and crowning the marriage ceremony with her presence were among our topics already more or less familiar to me through the letters i had had mr dick as usual was not forgotten my aunt informed me how he incessantly occupied himself in everything he could lay his hands on and kept king charles the first at a distance by that semblance of employment how it was one of the main joys and rewards of her life that he was free and happy instead of in monotonous restraint and how as a novel general conclusion nobody but she could ever fully know what he was and when trot said my aunt patting the back of my hand as we sat in our old way before the fire when are you going over to i shall get a horse and ride over to morrow morning aunt unless you will go with me no said my aunt in her short abrupt way i mean to stay where i am then i should ride i said i could not have come through to day without stopping if i had been coming to anyone but her she was pleased but answered tut trot my old bones would have kept till to morrow and softly patted my hand again as i sat looking thoughtfully at the fire thoughtfully for i could not be here once
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more and so near without the revival of those regrets with which i had so long been occupied softened regrets they might be teaching me what i had failed to learn when my younger life was all before me but not the less regrets oh trot i seemed to hear my aunt say once more and i understood her better now blind blind blind we both kept silence for some minutes when i raised my eyes i found that she was steadily observant of me perhaps she had followed the current of my mind for it seemed to me an easy one to track now wilful as it had been once of david you will find her father a white haired old man said my aunt though a better man in all other respects a man neither will you find him measuring all human interests and joys and sorrows with his one poor little inch rule now trust me child such things must shrink very much before they can be measured off in that way indeed they must said i you will find her pursued my aunt as good as beautiful as earnest as disinterested as she has always been if i knew higher praise trot i would bestow it on her there was no higher praise for her no higher reproach for me o how had i strayed so far away if she trains the young girls whom she has about her to be like herself said my aunt earnest even to the filling of her eyes with tears heaven knows her life will be well employed useful and happy as she said that day how could she be otherwise than useful and happy has any i was thinking aloud rather than speaking well hey any what said my aunt sharply any lover said i a score cried my aunt with a kind of indignant pride she might have married twenty times my dear since you have been gone no doubt said i no doubt but has she any lover who is worthy of her could care for no other my aunt sat musing for a little while with her chin upon her hand slowly raising her eyes to mine she said i suspect she has an attachment trot a prosperous one said i trot returned my aunt gravely i can t say i have no right to tell you even so much she has never confided it to me but i suspect it she looked so attentively and anxiously at me i even saw her tremble that i felt now more than ever that she had followed my late thoughts i summoned all the resolutions i had made in all those many days and nights and all those many of my heart if it should be so i began and i hope it is i don t know that it is said my aunt you must not be ruled by my suspicions you must keep them secret they are very slight perhaps i have no right to speak if it should be so i repeated will tell me at her own good time a sister to whom i have confided so much aunt will not be reluctant to confide in me my aunt withdrew her eyes from mine as slowly as she had turned them upon me and covered them thoughtfully with her hand by and by she put her other hand on my shoulder and so we both sat looking into the past without saying another word until we parted for the night i rode away early in the morning for the scene of my old school days i cannot say that i was yet quite happy in the hope that i was gaining a victory over myself even in the prospect of so soon looking on her face again the well remembered ground was soon traversed and i came into the quiet streets where every stone was a boy s book to me i went on a q the personal history and experience foot to the old house and went away with a heart too full to enter i returned and looking as i passed through the low window of the room where first and afterwards mr had been wont to sit saw that it was a little parlor now and that there was no office otherwise the staid old house was as to its cleanliness and order still just as it had been when i first saw it i requested the new maid who admitted me to tell miss that a gentleman who waited on her from a friend abroad was there and i was shown up the grave old staircase of the steps i knew so well into the unchanged drawing room the books that and i had read together were on their shelves and the desk where i had labored at my lessons many a night stood yet at the same old corner of the table all the little changes that had crept in when the were there were changed again everything was as it used to be in the happy time i stood in a window and looked across the ancient street at the opposite houses recalling how i had watched them on wet when i first came there and how i had used to about the people who appeared at any of the windows and had followed them with my eyes up and down stairs while women went along the pavement in and the dull rain fell in lines and poured out of the yonder and flowed into the road the feeling with which i used to watch the as they came into the town on those wet evenings at dusk and past with their bundles drooping over their shoulders at the ends of sticks came back to me as then with the smell of damp earth and wet leaves and and the sensation of the very
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airs that blew upon me in my own journey the opening of the little door in the wall made me start and turn her beautiful serene eyes met mine as she came towards me she stopped and laid her hand upon her bosom and i caught her in my arms my dear girl i have come too suddenly upon you no no am so rejoiced to see you dear the happiness it is to me to see you once again i folded her to my heart and for a little while we were both silent presently we sat down side by side and her angel face was turned upon me with the welcome i had dreamed of waking and sleeping for whole years she was so true she was so beautiful she was so good i owed her so much gratitude she was so dear to me that i could find no utterance for what i felt i tried to bless her tried to thank her tried to tell her as i had often done in letters what an influence she had upon me but all my efforts were in vain my love and joy were dumb with her own sweet tranquillity she my agitation led me back to the time of our parting spoke to me of whom she had visited in secret many times spoke to me tenderly of s grave with the instinct of her noble heart she touched the of my memory so softly and that not one within me i could listen to the sorrowful distant music and desire to shrink from nothing it awoke how could i when blended with it all was her dear self the better angel of my life of david and you i said by and by tell me of yourself you have hardly ever told me of your own life in all this lapse of time what should i tell she answered with her radiant smile papa is well you see us here quiet in our own home our anxieties set at rest our home restored to us and knowing that dear you know all all said i she looked at me with some fluttering wonder in her face is there nothing else sister i said her color which had just now faded returned and faded again she smiled with a quiet sadness i thought and shook her head i had sought to lead her to what my aunt had hinted at for sharply painful to me as it must be to receive that confidence i was to discipline my heart and do my duty to her i saw however that she was uneasy and i let it pass you have much to do dear with my school said she looking up again in all her bright composure yes it is laborious is it not the labor is so pleasant she returned that it is scarcely grateful in me to call it by that name nothing good is difficult to you said i her color came and went once more and once more as she bent her head i saw the same sad smile you will wait and see papa said cheerfully and pass the day with us perhaps you will sleep in your own room we always call it yours i could not do that having promised to ride back to my aunt s at night bnt i would pass the day there joyfully i must be a prisoner for a little while said but here are the old books and the old music even the old flowers are here said i looking round or the old kinds i have found a pleasure returned smiling while you have been absent in keeping every thing as it used to be when we were children we were very happy then i think heaven knows we were said i and every little thing that has reminded me of my brother said with her cordial eyes turned cheerfully upon me has been a welcome companion even this showing me the basket trifle full of keys still hanging at her side seems to a kind of old tune she smiled again and went out at the door by which she had come it was for me to guard this affection with religious care it was all that i had left myself and it was a treasure if i once shook the foundations of the sacred confidence and usage in virtue of which it was given to me it was lost and could never be recovered i set this steadily before myself the better i loved her the more it me never to forget it i walked through the streets and once more seeing my old adversary the butcher now a with his staff hanging up in the shop went down to look at the place where i had fought him and there s the personal history and experience on miss shepherd and the eldest miss and all the idle loves and and of that time nothing seemed to have survived that time but and she ever a star above me was brighter and higher when i returned mr had come home from a garden he had a couple of miles or so out of the town where he now employed himself almost every day i found him as my aunt had described him we sat down to dinner with some half dozen little girls and he seemed but the shadow of his handsome picture on the wall the tranquillity and peace belonging of old to that quiet ground in my memory pervaded it again when dinner was done mr taking no wine and i desiring none we went up stairs where and her little charges sang and played and worked after tea the children left us and we three sat together talking of the by gone days my part in them said mr shaking his white head has much matter
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for regret for deep regret and deep you well know but i would not it if it were in my power i could readily believe that looking at the face beside him i should with it he pursued such patience and devotion such fidelity such a child s love as i must not forget no even to forget myself i understand you sir i softly said i hold it i have always held it in veneration but no one knows not even you he returned how much she has done how much she has undergone how hard she has dear she had put her hand on his arm to stop him and was very very pale well well he said with a sigh as i then saw some trial she had borne or was yet to bear in with what my aunt had told me well i have never told you of her mother has any one never sir it s not much though it was much to suffer she married me in opposition to her father s wish and he her she prayed him to forgive her before my came into this world he was a very hard man and her mother had long been dead he her he broke her heart leaned upon his shoulder and stole her arm about his neck she had an affectionate and gentle heart he said and it was broken i knew its tender nature very well no one could if i did not she loved me dearly but was never happy she was always laboring in secret under this distress and being delicate and downcast at the time of his last for it was not the first by many away and died she left me two weeks old and the grey hair that you recollect me with when you first came he kissed on her cheek my love for my dear child was a love but my mind was all then i say no more of that i am not speaking of myself but of her mother and of her if i give you any clue to what i am or to what have been you will it i know what of david is i need not say i have always read something of her poor mother s story in her character and so i tell it you to night when we three are again together after such great changes i have told it all his bowed head and her angel face and filial duty derived a more pathetic meaning from it than they had had before if i had wanted anything by which to mark this night of our i should have found it in this rose up from her father s side before long and going softly to her piano played some of the old airs to which we had often listened in that place have you any intention of going away again asked me as i was standing by what does my sister say to that i hope not then i have no such intention i think you ought not since you ask me she said mildly your growing reputation and success your power of doing good and if could spare my brother with her eyes upon me perhaps the time could not what i am you have made me you should know best i made you yes my dear girl i said bending over her i tried to tell you when we met to day something that has been in my thoughts since died you remember w r hen you came down to me in our little room pointing upward oh she returned her eyes filled with tears so loving so confiding and so young can i ever forget as you were then my sister i have often thought since you have ever been to me ever pointing upward ever leading me to something better ever directing me to higher things she only shook her head through her tears i saw the same sad quiet smile and i am so grateful to you for it so bound to you that there is no name for the affection of my heart i want you to know yet don t know how to tell you that all my life long i shall look up to you and be guided by you as i have been through the darkness that is past whatever whatever new ties you may form whatever changes may come between us i shall always look to you and love you as i do now and have always done you will always be my solace and resource as you have always been until i die my dearest sister i shall see you always before me pointing upward she put her hand in mine and told me she was proud of me and of what i said although i praised her very far beyond her worth then she went on softly playing but without removing her eyes from me do you know what i have heard to night said i strangely seems to be a part of the feeling with which i regarded you when i saw you first with which i sat beside you in my rough school days you knew i had no mother she replied with a smile and felt kindly towards me more than that i knew almost as if i had known this story the personal h y and experience that there was something gentle and softened surrounding you something that might have been sorrowful in some one else as i can now understand it was but was not so in you she softly played on looking at me still will you laugh at my such fancies no or at my saying that i really believe i felt even then that you could be faithfully affectionate against all and never cease to be so until you
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ceased to live will you laugh at such a dream oh no oh no for an instant a shadow crossed her face but even in the start it gave me it was gone and she was playing on and looking at me with her own calm smile as i rode back in the lonely night the wind going by me like a restless memory i thought of this and feared she was not happy was not happy but thus far i had faithfully set the seal upon the past and thinking of her pointing upward thought of her as pointing to that sky above me where in the mystery to come i might yet love her with a love unknown on earth and tell her what the strife had been within me when i loved her here chapter i am shown two interesting for a time at all events until my book should be completed which would be the work of several months i took up my abode in my aunt s house at and there sitting in the window from which i had looked out at the moon upon the sea when that roof first gave me shelter i quietly pursued my task in of my intention of referring to my own only when their course should incidentally connect itself with the progress of my story i do not enter on the aspirations the delights anxieties and triumphs of my art that i truly devoted myself to it with my strongest earnestness and bestowed upon it every energy of my soul i have already said if the books i have written be of any worth they will supply the rest i shall otherwise have written to poor purpose and the rest will be of interest to no one occasionally i went to london to lose myself in the swarm of life there or to consult with on some business point he had managed for me in my absence with the judgment and my worldly affairs were as my began to bring upon me an enormous quantity of letters from people of whom i had no knowledge chiefly about nothing and extremely difficult to answer i agreed of david with to have my name painted up on his door there the devoted on that beat delivered of letters for me and there at intervals i labored through them like a home secretary of state without the salary among this correspondence there dropped in every and then an obliging proposal from one of the numerous always lurking about the to practise under cover of my name if i would take the necessary steps remaining to make a of myself and pay me a on the profits but i declined these offers being already aware that there were plenty of such covert in existence and considering the quite bad enough without my doing anything to make it worse the girls had gone home when my name burst into bloom on s door and the sharp boy looked all day as if he had never heard of shut up in a back room glancing down from her work into a little strip of garden with a pump in it but there i always found her the same bright often humming her when no strange foot was coming up the stairs and the sharp boy in his official closet with melody i wondered at first why i so often found writing in a copy book and why she always shut it up when i appeared and hurried it into the table drawer but the secret soon came out one day who had just come home through the from court took a paper out of his desk and asked me what i thought of that handwriting oh don t tom cried who was warming his slippers before the fire my dear returned tom in a delighted state why not what do you say to that writing it s legal and formal said i i don t think i ever saw such a stiff hand not like a lady s hand is it said a lady s i repeated bricks and mortar are more like a lady s hand broke into a laugh and informed me that it was s writing that had vowed and declared he would need a clerk soon and she would be that clerk that she had acquired this hand from a pattern and that she could throw off i forget how many an hour was very much confused by my being told all this and said that when tom was made a judge he wouldn t be so ready to proclaim it which tom denied that he should always be equally proud of it under all circumstances what a thoroughly good and charming wife she is my dear said i when she had gone away laughing my dear returned she is without any exception the dearest girl the way she this place her domestic knowledge economy and order her cheerfulness indeed you have reason to commend her i returned you are a happy fellow i believe you make yourselves and each other two of the happiest people in the world i am sure we are two of the happiest people returned the personal history and experience i admit that at all events bless my soul when i see her getting up by candle light on these dark mornings herself in the day s arrangements going out to market before the clerks come into the inn caring for no weather the most capital uttle dinners out of the materials making and keeping everything in its right place always so neat and ornamental herself sitting up at night with me if it s ever so late sweet tempered and encouraging always and all for me i positively sometimes can t believe it he was tender of the very slippers she had been warming as he put
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and friend our venerable was a great deal older and not improved in appearance his face was as fiery as ever his eyes were as small and rather deeper set the scanty wet looking the personal history and experience grey hair by which i remembered him was almost gone and the thick veins in his bald head were none the more agreeable to look at after some conversation among these gentlemen from which i might have supposed that there was nothing in the world to be taken into account but the supreme comfort of prisoners at any expense and nothing on the wide earth to be done outside prison doors we began our inspection it being then just dinner time we went first into the great kitchen where every prisoner s dinner was in course of being set out separately to be handed to him in his cell with the regularity and precision of clock work i said aside to that i wondered whether it occurred to anybody that there was a striking contrast between these plentiful of choice quality and the dinners not to say of but of soldiers sailors the great bulk of the honest working community of whom not one man in five hundred ever dined half so well but i learned that the system required high living and in short to dispose of the system once for all i found that on that head and on all others the system put an end to all doubts and disposed of all nobody appeared to have the least idea that there was any other system but the system to be considered as we were going through some of the magnificent passages i inquired of mr and his friends what were supposed to be the main advantages of this all governing and universally over riding system i found them to be the perfect of prisoners so that no one man in confinement there knew anything about another and the of prisoners to a wholesome state of mind leading to sincere and repentance now it struck me when we began to visit individuals in their and to the passages in which those were and to have the manner of the going to chapel and so forth explained to us that there was a strong probability of the prisoners knowing a good deal about each other and of their carrying on a pretty complete system of intercourse this at the time i write has been proved i believe to be the case but as it would have been flat against the system to have hinted such a doubt then i looked out for the as diligently as i could and here again i had great i found as a fashion in the form of the as i had left outside in the forms of the coats and in the windows of the shops i found a vast amount of profession varying very little in character varying very little which i thought exceedingly suspicious even in words i found a great many whole of inaccessible grapes but i found very few whom i would have trusted within reach of a bunch above all i found that the most men were the greatest objects of interest and that their conceit their vanity their want of excitement and their love of deception which many of them possessed to an almost incredible extent as their histories showed all prompted to these professions and were all gratified by them however i heard so repeatedly in the course of our to and fro of a certain number twenty seven who was the favorite and who really appeared to be a model prisoner that i resolved to my judgment until i should see twenty seven twenty eight i understood was also of david a bright particular star but it was his misfortune to have his glory a little by the extraordinary lustre of twenty seven i heard so much of twenty seven of his pious to everybody around him and of the beautiful letters he constantly wrote to his mother whom he seemed to consider in a very bad way that i became quite impatient to see him i had to restrain my impatience for some time on account of twenty seven being reserved for a concluding effect but at last we came to the door of his cell and mr looking through a little hole in it reported to us in a state of the greatest admiration that he was reading a hymn book there was such a rush of heads immediately to see number twenty seven reading his hymn book that the little hole was blocked up six or seven heads deep to remedy this inconvenience and give us an opportunity of conversing with twenty seven in all his purity mr directed the door of the cell to be unlocked and twenty seven to be invited out into the passage this was done and whom should and i then behold to our amazement in this converted number twenty seven but he knew us directly and said as he came out with the old how do you do mr how do you do mr this recognition caused a general admiration in the party i rather thought that was struck by his not being proud and taking notice of us well twenty seven said mr mournfully admiring him how do you find yourself to day lam very sir replied you are always so twenty seven said mr here another gentleman asked with extreme anxiety are you quite comfortable yes i thank you sir said looking in that direction ear more comfortable here than ever i was outside i see my follies now sir that s what makes me comfortable several gentlemen were much affected and a third forcing himself to the front inquired with extreme feeling how do you find the beef thank you sir replied glancing in the new direction of this voice it
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was yesterday than i could wish but it s my duty to bear i have committed follies gentlemen said looking round with a meek smile and i ought to bear the consequences without a murmur partly of gratification at twenty seven s celestial state of mind and partly of indignation against the who had given him any cause of complaint a note of which was immediately made by mr having subsided twenty seven stood in the midst of us as if he felt himself the principal object of merit in a highly museum that we the might have an excess of light shining upon us all at once orders were given to let out twenty eight i had been so much astonished already that i only felt a kind of resigned wonder when mr walked forth reading a good book the personal history and experience twenty eight said a gentleman in spectacles who had not yet spoken you complained last week my good fellow of the how has it been since i thank you sir said mr it has been better made if i might take the liberty of saying so sir i don t think the milk which is boiled with it is quite genuine but i am aware sir that there is great of milk in london and that the article in a pure state is difficult to be obtained it appeared to me that the gentleman in spectacles backed his twenty eight against mr s twenty seven for each of them took his own man in hand what is your state of mind twenty eight said the in spectacles i thank you sir returned mr i see my follies now sir i am a good deal troubled when i think of the sins of my former companions sir but i trust they may find forgiveness you are quite happy yourself said the nodding encouragement i am much obliged to you sir returned mr perfectly so is there anything at all on your mind now said the if so mention it twenty eight sir said mr without looking up if my eyes have not deceived me there is a gentleman present who was acquainted with me in my former life it may be profitable to that gentleman to know sir that i attribute my past follies entirely to having lived a thoughtless life in the service of young men and to having allowed myself to be led by them into weaknesses which i had not the strength to resist i hope that gentleman will take warning sir and will not be offended at my freedom it is for his good i am conscious of my own past follies i hope he may repent of all the wickedness and sin to which he has been a party i observed that several gentlemen were their eyes each with one hand as if they had just come into church this does you credit twenty eight the i should have expected it of you is there anything else sir returned mr slightly lifting up his eyebrows but not his eyes there was a young woman who fell into courses that i endeavoured to save sir but could not rescue i beg that gentleman if he has it in his power to inform that young woman from me that i forgive her her bad conduct towards myself and that i call her to repentance if he will be so good i have no doubt twenty eight returned the that the gentleman you refer to feels very strongly as we all must what you have so properly said we will not detain you i thank you sir said mr gentlemen i wish you a good day and hoping you and your families will also see your wickedness and with this number twenty eight retired after a glance between him and as if they were not altogether unknown to each other through of david some medium of communication and a murmur went round the group as his door shut upon him that he was a most respectable man and a beautiful case now twenty seven said mr entering on a clear stage with ms man is there anything that any one can do for you if so mention it i would ask sir returned with a jerk of his head for leave to write again to mother it shall certainly be granted said mr thank you sir i am anxious about mother i am afraid she ain t safe somebody asked what from but there was a whisper of hush safe sir returned in the direction of the voice i should wish mother to be got into my state i never should have been got into my present state if i hadn t come here i wish mother had come here it would be better for everybody if they got took up and was brought here this sentiment gave unbounded satisfaction greater satisfaction i think than anything that had passed yet before i come here said stealing a look at us as if he would have the outer world to which we belonged if he could i was given to follies but now i am sensible of my follies there s a deal of sin outside there s a deal of sin in mother there s nothing but sin everywhere except here you are quite changed said mr oh dear yes sir cried this hopeful penitent you wouldn t if you were going out asked somebody else oh de ar no sir well said mr this is very gratifying you have addressed mr twenty seven do you wish to say anything further to him you knew me a long time before i came here and was changed mr said looking at me and a more look i never saw even on his you knew me when in spite of my follies i was among them that was proud and
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meek among them that was violent you was violent to ihe yourself mr once you struck me a blow in the face you know general several indignant glances directed at me but i forgive you mr said making his nature the subject of a most and awful parallel which i shall not record i forgive everybody it would ill become me to bear malice i freely forgive you and i hope you your passions in future i hope mr w will repent and miss w and all of that sinful lot you ve been visited with affliction and i hope it may do you good but you d better have come here mr w had better have come here and miss w too the best wish i could give you mr and give all of you gentlemen is that you could be took up and brought here when i think of my past follies and my present state i am sure it would be best for you i pity all who ain t brought here the personal history and experience he back into his cell amidst a little chorus of approbation and both and i experienced a great relief when he was locked in it was a characteristic feature in this repentance that i was fain to ask what these two men had done to be there at all that appeared to be the last thing about which they had anything to say i addressed myself to one of the two who i suspected from certain latent indications in their faces knew pretty well what all this stir was worth do you know said i as we walked along the passage what was number twenty seven s last folly the answer was that it was a bank case a fraud on the bank of england i asked yes sir fraud and conspiracy he and some others he set the others on it was a deep plot for a large sum sentence for life twenty seven was the bird of the lot and had very nearly kept himself safe but not quite the bank was just able to put salt upon his tail and only just do you know twenty eight s offence twenty eight returned my speaking throughout in a low tone and looking over his shoulder as we walked along the passage to guard himself from being overheard in such an reference to these by and the rest twenty eight also got a place and robbed a young master of a matter of two hundred and fifty pounds in money and the night before they were going abroad i particularly recollect his case from his being took by a dwarf a what a little woman i have forgot her name not that s it he had pursuit and was going to america in a wig and whiskers and such a complete disguise as never you see in all your born days when the little woman being in met him walking along the street picked him out with her sharp eye in a moment ran his legs to upset him and held on to him like grim death excellent miss cried i you d have said so if you had seen her standing on a chair in the witness box at his trial as i did said my friend he cut her face right open and her in the most brutal manner when she took him but she never her hold till he was locked up she held so tight to him in fact that the officers were obliged to take em both together she gave her evidence in the way and was highly by the bench and cheered right home to her lodgings she said in court that she d have took him single handed on account of what she knew concerning him if he had been and it s my belief she would it was mine too and i highly respected miss for it we had now seen all there was to see it would have been in vain to represent to such a man as the mr that twenty seven and twenty eight were perfectly consistent and unchanged that exactly what they were then they had always been that the were just the subjects to make that sort of profession in such a of david place they knew its market value at least as well as we did in the immediate service it would do them when they were in a word that it was a rotten hollow painfully suggestive piece of business altogether we left them to their system and themselves and went home wondering perhaps it s a good thing said i to have an ridden hard for it s the sooner ridden to death i hope so replied chapter a light shines on my way the year came round to christmas time and i had been at home above two months i had seen frequently however loud the general voice might be in giving me encouragement and however fervent the emotions and to which it roused me i heard her word of praise as i heard nothing else at least once a week and sometimes oftener i rode over there and passed the evening i usually rode back at night for the old unhappy sense was always hovering about me now most sorrowfully when i left her and i was glad to be up and out rather than wandering over the past in weary or miserable dreams i wore away the longest part of many wild sad nights in those rides as i went the thoughts that had occupied me in my long absence or if i were to say rather that i listened to the echoes of those thoughts i should better express the truth they spoke to me from afar off i had put them at a distance and accepted my inevitable place when
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i read to what i wrote when i saw her listening face moved her to smiles or tears and heard her cordial voice so earnest on the shadowy events of that imaginative world in which i lived i thought what a fate mine might have been but only thought so as i had thought after i was married to what i could have wished my wife to be my duty to who loved me with a love which if i i wronged most and poorly and could never restore my assurance that i who had worked out my own destiny and won what i had set my heart on had no right to murmur and must bear what i felt and what i had learned but i loved her and now it even became some consolation to me vaguely to conceive a distant day when i might it when all this should be over when i could say so it was when i came home and now i am old and i never have loved since she did not once show me any change in herself what she always had been to me she still was wholly between my aunt and me there had been something in this since the night of my return which i cannot call a restraint or an of the subject so much as an implied understanding that we thought of it the personal history and experience together but did not shape our thoughts into words when according to our old custom we sat before the fire at night we often fell into this train as naturally and as to each other as if we had said so but we preserved an unbroken silence i believed that she had read or partly read my thoughts that night and that she fully comprehended why i gave mine no more distinct expression this christmas time being come and having no new confidence in me a doubt that had several times arisen in my mind whether she could have that perception of the true state of my breast which restrained her with the apprehension of giving me pain began to me heavily if that were so my sacrifice was nothing my obligation to her and every poor action i had shrunk from i was doing i resolved to set this right beyond all doubt if such a barrier were between us to break it down at once with a determined hand it was what lasting reason have i to remember it a cold harsh winter day there had been snow some hours before and it lay not deep but hard frozen on the ground out at sea beyond my window the wind blew from the north i had been thinking of it sweeping over those mountain of snow in then inaccessible to any human foot and had been which was the those solitary regions or a deserted ocean to day trot said my aunt putting her head in at the door yes said i i am going over to it s a good day for a ride i hope your horse may think so too said my aunt but at present he is holding down his head and his ears standing before the door there as if he thought his stable my aunt i may observe allowed my horse on the forbidden ground but had not at all toward the he will be fresh enough presently said i the ride will do his master good at all events observed my aunt glancing at the papers on my table ah child you pass a good many hours here i never thought when i used to read books what work it was to write them it s work enough to read them sometimes i returned as to the writing it has its own charms aunt ah i see said my aunt ambition love of approbation sympathy and much more i suppose well go along with you do you know anything more said i standing before her she had patted me on the shoulder and sat down in my chair of that attachment of she looked up in my face a little while before replying i think i do trot are you confirmed in your impression i inquired i think i am trot she looked so at me with a kind of doubt or pity or suspense in her affection that i summoned the stronger determination to show her a perfectly cheerful face and what is more trot said my aunt yes of david i think is going to be married god bless her said i cheerfully god bless her said my aunt and her husband too i echoed it parted from my aunt went lightly down stairs mounted and rode away there was greater reason than before to do what i had resolved to do how well i recollect the wintry ride the frozen of ice brushed from the blades of grass by the wind and borne across my face the hard clatter of the horse s hoofs beating a tune upon the ground the stiff soil the snow drift lightly in the chalk pit as the breeze ruffled it the smoking team with the of old hay stopping to breathe on the hill top and shaking their bells the slopes and sweeps of down land lying against the dark sky as if they were drawn on a huge slate i found alone the little girls had gone to their own homes now and she was alone by the fire reading she put down her book on seeing me come in and having welcomed me as usual took her and sat in one of the old fashioned windows i sat beside her on the window seat and we talked of what i was doing and when it would be done and of the progress i had made since my last visit was very
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cheerful and predicted that i should soon become too famous to be talked to on such subjects so i make the most of the present time you see said and talk to you while i may as i looked at her beautiful face observant of her work she raised her mild clear eyes and saw that i was looking at her you are thoughtful to day shall i tell you what about i came to tell you she put aside her work as she was used to do when we were seriously discussing anything and gave me her whole attention my dear do you doubt my being true to you no she answered with a look of astonishment do you doubt my being what i always have been to you no she answered as before do you remember that i tried to tell you when i came home what a debt of gratitude i owed you dearest and how fervently i felt towards you i remember it she said gently very well you have a secret said i let me share it she cast down her eyes and trembled i could hardly fail to know even if i had not heard but from other lips than yours which seems strange that there is some one upon whom you have bestowed the treasure of your love do not shut me out of what concerns your happiness so nearly if you can trust me as you say you can and as i know you may let me be your friend your brother in this matter of all others with an appealing almost a glance she rose from the window and hurrying across the room as if without knowing where put her hands before her face and burst into such tears as smote me to the heart and yet they awakened something in me bringing promise to my heart r b the personal history and experience without my knowing why these tears allied themselves with the quietly sad smile which was so fixed in my remembrance and shook me more with hope than fear or sorrow sister dearest what have i done let me go away i am not well i am not myself i will speak to you by and by another time i will write to you don t speak to me now don t don t i sought to recollect what she had said when i had spoken to her on that former night of her affection no return it seemed a very world that i must search through in a moment i cannot bear to see you so and think that i have been the cause my dearest girl dearer to me than anything in life if you are unhappy let me share your if you are in need of help or counsel let me try to give it to you if you have indeed a burden on your heart let me try to it for whom do i live now if it is not for you oh spare me i am not myself another time was all i could distinguish was it a selfish error that was leading me away or having once a clue to hope was there something opening to me that i had not dared to think of i must say more i cannot let you leave me so for heaven s sake let us not mistake each other after all these years and all that has come and gone with them i must speak plainly if you have any lingering thought that i could envy the happiness you will confer that i could not resign you to a dearer protector of your own choosing that i could not from my removed place be a contented witness of joy dismiss it for i don t deserve it i have not suffered quite in vain you have not taught me quite in vain there is no of self in what i feel for you she was quiet now in a little time she turned her pale face towards me and said in a low voice broken here and there but very clear i owe it to your pure friendship for me which indeed i do not doubt to tell you you are mistaken i can do no more if i have sometimes in the course of years wanted help and counsel they have come to me if i have sometimes been unhappy the feeling has passed away if i have ever had a burden on my heart it has been lightened for me if i have any secret it is no new one and is not what you suppose i cannot reveal it or divide it it has long been mine and must remain mine stay a moment she was going away but i detained her i clasped my arm about her waist in the course of years it is not a new one new thoughts and hopes were whirling through my mind and all the colors of my life were changing dearest whom i so respect and honor whom i so love when i came here to day i thought that nothing could have this confession from me i thought i could have kept it iu my bosom all our lives till we were old but if i have indeed any new born hope that i may ever call you something more than sister widely different from sister op david her tears fell fast but they were not like those she had lately shed and i saw my hope in them ever my guide and best support if you had been more of yourself and less of me when we grew up here together i think my heedless fancy never would have wandered from you but you were so much better than i so necessary to me in every boyish hope and disappointment that to have you
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to confide in and rely upon in everything became a second nature for the time the first and greater one of loving you as i do still weeping but not sadly joyfully and clasped in my arms as she had never been as i had thought she never was to be when i loved fondly as you know yes she cried earnestly i am glad to know it when i loved her even then my love would have been without your sympathy i had it and it was and when i lost her what should i have been without you still closer in my arms nearer to my heart her trembling hand upon my shoulder her sweet eyes shining through her tears on mine i went away dear loving you i stayed away loving you i returned home loving you and now i tried to tell her of the struggle i had had and the conclusion i had come to i tried to lay my mind before her truly and entirely i tried to show her how i had hoped i had come into the better knowledge of myself and of her how i had resigned myself to what that better knowledge brought and how i had come there even that day in my fidelity to this if she did so love me i said that she could take me for her husband she could do so on no deserving of mine except upon the truth of my love for her and the trouble in which it had to be what it was and hence it was that i revealed it and even out of thy true eyes in that same time the spirit of my child wife looked upon me saying it was well and winning me through thee to tenderest recollections of the blossom that had withered in its bloom i am so my heart is so but there is one thing i must say dearest what she laid her gentle hands upon my shoulders and looked calmly in my face do you know yet what it is i am afraid to on what it is tell me my dear i have loved you all my life o we were happy we were happy our tears were not for the trials hers so much the greater through which we had come to be thus but for the rapture of being thus never to be divided more we walked that winter evening in the fields together and the blessed calm within us seemed to be by the frosty air the early stars began to shine while we were lingering on and looking up to them we thanked our god for having guided us to this tranquillity we stood together in the same old fashioned window at night when the personal history and experience the moon was shining with her quiet eyes raised up to it i following her glance long miles of road then opened out before my mind and toiling on i saw a ragged way worn boy forsaken and neglected who should come to call even the heart now beating against mine his own it was nearly dinner time next day when we appeared before my aunt she was up in my study said which it was her pride to keep in readiness and order for me we found her in her spectacles sitting by the fire goodness me said my aunt peering through the dusk who s this you re bringing home said i as we had arranged to say nothing at first my aunt was not a httle she darted a hopeful glance at me when i said but seeing that i looked as usual she took off her spectacles in despair and rubbed her nose with them she greeted heartily nevertheless and we were soon in the lighted parlor down stairs at dinner my aunt put on her spectacles twice or thrice to take another look at me but as often took them off again disappointed and rubbed her nose with them much to the discomfiture of mr dick who knew this to be a bad symptom by the by aunt said i after dinner i have been speaking to about what you told me then trot said my aunt turning scarlet you did wrong and broke your promise you are not angry aunt i trust i am sure you won t be when you learn that is not unhappy in any attachment stuff and nonsense said my aunt as my aunt appeared to be annoyed i thought the best way was to cut her annoyance short i took in my arm to the back of her chair and we both leaned over her my aunt with one clap of her hands and one look through her spectacles immediately went into for the first and only time in all my knowledge of her the called up the moment my aunt was restored she flew at and calling her a silly old creature her with ill her might after that she mr dick who was highly honored but a good deal surprised and after that told them why then we were all happy together i could not discover whether my aunt in her last short conversation with me had fallen on a pious fraud or had really mistaken the state of my mind it was quite enough she said that she had told me was going to be married and that i now knew better than any one how true it was we were married within a fortnight and and doctor and mrs strong were the only guests at our quiet wedding we left them full of joy and drove away together clasped in my embrace i held the source of every worthy i had ever had the centre of myself the circle of my life my own my wife my love of whom was founded on a rock v
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in the bush bnt what i your name and she and me lost sight of r that shining was that low at first that if she had know d what r from us so kind and tis my opinion she d have drooped away but was some poor folks aboard as had illness among em and she took care of them and was the children in our company and she took care of them and so she got to be busy and to be doing good and that helped her when did she first hear of it i asked i it from her i on t said mr going on nigh a year we was living then in a solitary place but among the trees and with the roses a covering our to the roof come along one day when i was out a working on the land a traveller from our own or in england i t rightly mind which and of course we took him in and him to eat and drink and made him welcome we all do that all the colony over he d got an old newspaper with him and some other account in print of the storm that s how she know d it when i come home at night i found she know d it he dropped his voice as he said these words and the gravity i so well remembered his face did it change her much we asked aye for a good long time he said shaking his head if not to this present hour but i think the done her good and she had a deal to mind in the way of poultry and the uke and minded of it and come through i wonder he said thoughtfully if you could see my em ly now r whether you d know her is she so altered i inquired i t know i see her ev ry day and t know but i have so a slight figure said mr looking at the fire worn soft sorrowful blue eyes a face a head leaning a little down a quiet voice and way timid a most that s em ly we silently observed him as he sat still looking at the fire some thinks he said as her affection was ill bestowed some as her marriage was broke off by death no one knows how tis she might have married well a of times but uncle she says to me that s gone for ever cheerful along with me retired when others is by fond of going any distance fur to teach a child or fur to tend a sick person or fur to do some kindness tow a young girl s wedding and she s done a many but has never seen one fondly loving of her uncle patient liked by young and old out by all that has any trouble that s em ly he drew his hand across his face and with a half suppressed sigh looked up from the fire is with you yet i asked he replied got married r in the second year the personal history and experience a young man a farm as come by us on his way to market with his r s a journey of over five hundred mile and back made offers fur to take her fur his wife wives is very scarce and then to set up fur their two selves in the bush she spoke to me fur to tell him her story i did they was married and they live fo hundred mile away from any voices but their own and the singing birds mrs i suggested it was a pleasant key to touch for mr suddenly burst into a roar of laughter and rubbed his hands up and down his legs as he had been accustomed to do when he enjoyed himself in the long boat would you believe it he said why even made offers fur to marry her if a ship s cook that was turning r didn t make offers fur to marry i m and i can t say no fairer than that i never saw laugh so this sudden on the part of mr was so delightful to her that she could not leave off laughing and the more she laughed the more she made me laugh and the greater mr s became and the more he rubbed his legs and what did mrs say asked when i was grave enough if you believe me returned mr stead of saying thank you i m much to you i ain t a going fur to change my condition at my time of life up d with a bucket as was standing by and laid it over that ship s cook s head till he sung out for help and i went in and of him mr burst into a great roar of laughter and and i both kept him company but i must say this for the good he resumed wiping his face when we were quite exhausted she has been all she said she d be to us and more she s the the the woman r as ever draw d the breath of life i have never know d her to be lone and for a single minute not even when the colony was all afore us and we was new to it and thinking of the old un is a thing she never done i do assure you since she left england now last not least mr said i he has paid off every obligation he incurred here even to s bill you remember my dear and therefore we may take it for granted that he is doing well but what is the latest news of him mr with a smile put his hand in his breast pocket and produced a flat
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folded paper parcel from which he took out with much care a little odd looking newspaper you are to r said he as we have left the bush now being so well to do and have gone right away round to port harbor s what we call a town mr was in the bush near you said i bless you yes said mr and turned to with a will i never wish to meet a better gen for turning to with a will i ve seen that bald head of his a in the sun r op david till i a most it would have melted away and now lie s a magistrate a magistrate eh said i mr pointed to a certain paragraph in the newspaper where i read aloud as follows from the port times the public dinner to our distinguished fellow and port district magistrate came off yesterday in the large room of the hotel which was crowded to it is estimated that not fewer than forty seven persons must have been with dinner at one time exclusive of the company in the passage and on the stairs the beauty fashion and of port to do honor to one so esteemed so highly and so widely popular doctor of house grammar school port presided and on his right sat the distinguished guest after the removal of the cloth and the singing of non beautifully executed and in which we were at no loss to distinguish the bell like notes of that gifted amateur junior the usual loyal and patriotic were given and received doctor in a speech with feeling then proposed our distinguished guest the ornament of our town may he never leave us but to better himself and may his success among us be such as to render his himself impossible the cheering with which the toast was received description again and again it rose and fell like the waves of ocean at length all was hushed and presented himself to return thanks far be it from us in the present comparatively imperfect state of the resources of our establishment to endeavour to follow our distinguished through the periods of his polished and highly address suffice it to observe that it was a of eloquence and that those passages in which he more particularly traced his own successful career to its source and warned the younger portion of his from the of ever pecuniary which they were unable to brought a tear into the eye present the remaining were doctor mrs who gracefully bowed her from the side door where a of beauty was elevated on chairs at once to witness and adorn the gratifying scene mrs late miss mrs junior who the assembly by remarking that he found himself unable to return thanks in a speech but would do so with their permission in a song mrs s family it is needless to remark in the mother country c c c at the conclusion of the proceedings the tables were cleared as if by for dancing among the of who themselves until gave warning for departure junior and the lovely and accomplished miss fourth daughter of doctor were particularly remarkable i was looking back to the name of doctor pleased to have the personal history and experience discovered in these happier circumstances mr formerly poor pinched to my magistrate when mr pointing to another part of the paper my eyes rested on my own name and i read thus to david the eminent author my dear sir tears have elapsed since i had an opportunity of the now familiar to the of a considerable portion of the world but my dear sir though by the force of circumstances over which i have had no from the personal society of the friend and companion of my youth i have not been of his soaring flight nor have i been though seas between us ha roared burns from in the intellectual he has spread before us i cannot therefore allow of the departure from this place of an individual whom we respect and esteem without my dear sir taking this public opportunity of thanking you on my own behalf and i may undertake to add on that of the whole of the inhabitants of port for the gratification of which you are the agent on my dear sir you are not unknown here you are not though f remote we are neither melancholy nor i may add slow go on my dear sir in your eagle course the inhabitants of port may at least to watch it with delight with entertainment with instruction among the eyes elevated towards you from this portion of the globe will ever be found while it has light and life the eye to magistrate i found on glancing at the remaining contents of the newspaper that mr was a and esteemed correspondent of that journal there was another letter from him in the same paper touching a bridge there was an advertisement of a collection of similar letters by him to be shortly in a neat volume with considerable additions and unless i am very much mistaken the leading article was his also we talked much of mr on many other evening while mi remained with us he lived with us during the whole term of his stay which i think was something less than a month and his sister and my aunt came to london to see him and i parted from him when he sailed and we shall never part from him more on earth op david but before he left he went with me to to see a little i had put up in the churchyard to the memory of ham while i was the plain inscription for him at his request i saw him stoop and gather a of grass from the grave and a little earth for em ly he said as he put it
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when she told you you would be a judge but it was not the town talk then at all events says if i ever am one why you know you will be well my dear when i am one i shall tell the story as i said i would we walk away arm in arm i am going to have a family dinner with it is s birthday and on our road to me of the good fortune he has enjoyed i really have been able my dear to do all that i had most at heart there s the promoted to that living at four hundred and fifty pounds a year there are our two boys receiving the very best education and themselves as steady scholars and good fellows there are three of the girls married very comfortably there are three more living with us there are three more keeping house for the since mrs s and all of them happy except i suggest except the beauty says yes it was very unfortunate that she should marry such a vagabond but there was a certain dash and glare about him that caught her however now we have got her safe at our house and got rid of him we must cheer her up again s house is one of the very houses or it easily may have been which he and used to parcel out in their evening walks it is a large house but keeps his papers in his dressing room and his boots with his papers and he and squeeze themselves into upper rooms the best bed rooms for the beauty and the girls there is no room to spare in the house for more of the girls are here and always are here by some accident or other than i know how to count here when we go in is a crowd of them running down to the door and handing about to be kissed until he is out of breath here established in is the poor beauty a widow with a little girl here at dinner on s birthday are the three married girls with their three husbands and one of the husband s brothers and another husband s cousin and another husband s sister who appears to me to be engaged to the cousin exactly the same simple unaffected fellow as he ever was sits at the foot of the large table like a and beams upon him from the head across a cheerful space that is certainly not glittering with metal and now as i close my task my desire to linger yet these the and op david faces fade away but one face shining on me like a heavenly light by which i see all other objects is above them and beyond them all and that remains i turn my head and see it in its beautiful serenity beside me my lamp burns low and i have written far into the night but the dear presence without which i were nothing bears me company o my soul so may thy face be by me when i close my hfe indeed so may i when realities are melting from me like the shadows which i now dismiss still find thee near me pointing upward the end london t and street books published by and works by charles in monthly parts price is each to be completed in twenty bleak house with illustrations by k the first volume op a child s history op england with a from a drawing by f w corrected and from household words with a table of dates price s neatly bound in cloth the history will be completed in three volumes of the same size and price david with illustrations by h k price s in cloth and son with forty illustrations by h k price s in cloth twist with illustrations by george price in cloth italy in vo price s in cloth in small vo price s each bound in cloth with gilt edges the illustrations by d r a r a frank stone john john and richard the haunted man and a christmas in the ghost s bargain a prose fancy for christmas time the on the the a story i m tv j a of some bells that rang an old the battle of life a year out and a new year in love story books published by and works by men of price is in cloth st and st james price in cloth s curtain the of a and the sick giant and the dwarf price s in cloth these form the second and third volumes of a collected edition of mb s writings now in weekly numbers price l d in monthly price d and in volumes the man made of money plates by john price s s curtain price s d punch s complete plates s m punch s to his son plates price s the story of a price s the of price s plays by ld time works wonders is i the is op the day is retired from business is works by a a the comic of illustrated with ten large coloured and numerous by john in one volume vo price lis the comic of england illustrated by john with two hundred and twenty large coloured steel in two volumes vo price s the comic price s the of the price s books published by and works by w m the of with illustrations on steel and wood by the author in two vo price s in cloth vanity illustrated with forty steel and numerous price s in cloth the history of samuel and the diamond in one volume small vo price s with ten illustrations on steel a new edition the book oe in small vo price s d with illustrations works by mark and price s cloth the enchanted doll a
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my most unwilling hand it is done nothing can undo it nothing can make it otherwise than as it was my old nurse was to go to london with me next day on the business of the will little em ly was passing that day at mr s we were all to meet in the old that night ham would bring em ly at the usual hour i would walk back at my leisure the brother and sister would return as they had come and be expecting us when the day closed in at the i parted from them at the gate where had rested with random s in the days of and instead of going straight back walked a little distance on the road to then i turned and walked back towards i stayed to dine at a decent some mile or two from the i have mentioned before and thus the day wore away and it was evening when i reached it rain was falling heavily by that time and it was a wild night but there was a moon behind the clouds and it was not dark i was soon within sight of mr s house and of the light within it shining through the window a little across the sand which was heavy brought me to the door and i went in it looked very comfortable indeed mr had smoked his evening pipe and there were preparations for some supper by and by the fire was bright the ashes were thrown up the was ready for little em ly in her old place in her own old place sat once more looking but for her dress as if she had never left it she had fallen back already on the society of the work box with saint paul s upon the lid the yard measure in the cottage and the bit of wax candle and there they all were just as if they had never been disturbed mrs appeared to be a little in her old corner and consequently looked quite natural too david you re first of the lot r said mr with a happy face t keep in that coat sir if it s wet thank you mr said i giving him my outer coat to hang up it s quite dry so tis said mr my shoulders as a sit ye down sir it ain t o no use saying welcome to you but you re welcome kind and hearty thank you mr i am sure of that well said i gi ing her a kiss and how are you old woman ha ha laughed mr sitting down beside us and rubbing his hands in his sense of relief from recent trouble and in the genuine of his nature there s not a woman in the sir as i tell her that need to feel more easy in her mind than her she done her by the departed and the departed know d it and the departed done what was right by her as she done what was right by the departed and and and it s all right mrs groaned cheer up my pretty said mr but he shook his head aside at us evidently sensible of the tendency of the late to the memory of the old one t be down cheer up for your own self on y a httle bit and see if a good deal more t come not to me dan l returned mrs s to me but to be lone and no no said mr soothing her sorrows yes yes dan l said mrs i ain t a person to live with them as has had money left thinks go too with me i had better be a why how should i ever spend it without you said mr with an air of serious remonstrance what are you a talking on t i want you more now than ever i did i know d i was never wanted before cried mrs with a pitiable and now i m told so how could i expect to be wanted being so lone and and so mr seemed very much shocked at himself for having david copper field made a speech capable of this construction but was prevented from replying by s pulling his sleeve and shaking her head after looking at mrs for some moments in sore distress of mind he glanced at the dutch clock rose the candle and put it in the window said mr cheerily we are mrs slightly groaned lighted up to custom you re a what that s fur sir well it s fur our httle em ly you see the path ain t over light or cheerful dark and when i m here at the hour as she s home i puts the light in the that you see said mr bending over me with great glee meets two objects she says says em ly s home she says and likewise says em ly my uncle s fur if i ain t i never have no li ht showed you re a baby said very fond of him for it if she thought so well returned mr standing with his legs pretty wide apart and rubbing his hands up and down them in his comfortable satisfaction as he looked alternately at us and at the fire i t know but i am not you see to look at not observed no laughed mr not to look at but to to consider on you know t care bless you now i tell you when i go a looking and looking about that house of our em ly s i m i m said mr with sudden emphasis i can t say more if i t feel as if the things was her a most i takes em up and i puts em down and i
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touches of em as delicate as if they was our em ly so tis with her little and that i couldn t see one on em h used o a purpose not fur the there s a fur you in the form of a great sea said mr his earnestness with a roar of laughter and i both laughed but not so loud it s my opinion you see said mr with a after some further rubbing of his legs as this is along of my david played with her so much and made believe as we was and french and and every of bless you yes and lions and and i don t know what all when she warn t no higher than my knee i ve got into the way on it you know why this here candle now said mr holding out his hand towards it know well that she married and gone i shall put that candle just the same as now i know well that when i m here o nights and where else should live bless your arts whatever i come into and she ain t here or i ain t i shall put the candle in the and sit afore the fire pretending i m expecting of her like i m a doing now there s a for you said mr with another roar in the form of a sea why at the present minute when i see the candle sparkle up i says to myself she s a looking at it em ly s a coming a for you in the form of a sea right for all that said mr stopping in his roar and his hands together fur here she is it was only ham the night should have turned more wet since i came in for he had a large sou hat on over his where s em ly said mr ham made a motion with his head as if she were outside mr took the light from the window trimmed it put it on the table and was busily stirring the fire when ham who had not moved said r will you come out a minute and see what em ly and me has got to show you we went out as i passed him at the door i saw to my astonishment and fright that he was deadly pale he pushed me hastily into the open air and closed the door upon us only upon us two ham what s the matter r oh for his broken heart how dreadfully he wept i was by the sight of such grief i don t know what i bought or what i dreaded i could only look at him david ham poor good fellow for heaven s sake tell me what s the matter p my love r the pride and hope of my art her that i d have died for and would die for now she s gone gone em ly s run away oh r think how she s run away when i pray my good and gracious god to kill her her that is so dear above all things sooner than let her come to ruin and disgrace the face he turned up to the troubled sky the quivering of his clasped hands the agony of his figure remain associated with that lonely waste in my remembrance to this hour it is always night there and he is the only object in the scene you re a scholar he said hurriedly and know what s right and best what am i to say in doors how am i ever to break it to him r i saw the door move and instinctively tried to hold the latch on the outside to gain a moment s time it was too late mr thrust forth his face and never could i forget the change that came upon it when he saw us if i w re to live five hundred years i remember a great wail and cry and the women about him and we all standing in the room i with a paper in my hand which ham had given me mr with his torn open his hair wild his face and quite white and blood down his bosom it had sprung from his mouth i think looking at me read it sir he said in a low shivering voice slow please i t know as i can understand in the midst of the silence of death i read thus fi om a blotted better when you who love me so much better than i ever have deserved even when my mind was innocent see this i shall be far away i shall be fur away he repeated slowly stop em ly away weu david when i leave my dear home my dear home oh my dear home the morning the letter bore date on tlie previous night it will be never to come back unless he brings me back a lady this will be found at night many hours after instead of me oh if you knew how my heart is torn if even you that i have wronged so much that never can forgive me could only know what i suffer i am too wicked to write about myself oh take comfort in thinking that i am so bad oh for mercy sake tell uncle that i never loved him half so dear as now oh don t remember how affectionate and kind you have all been to me don t remember we were ever to be married but try to think as if i died when i was little and was buried somewhere pray heaven that i am going away from have compassion on my uncle tell him that i never loved him half so dear be his comfort love some
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good girl that will be what i was once to uncle and be true to you and worthy of you and know no shame but me god bless all i ll pray for all often on my knees if he don t bring me back a lady and i don t pray for my own self i ll pray for all my parting love to uncle my last tears and my last thanks for uncle that was all he stood long after i had ceased to read still looking at me at length i ventured to take his hand and to entreat him as well as i could to endeavour to get some command of himself he replied i sir i without moving ham spoke to him mr was so far sensible of affliction that he wrung his hand but otherwise he remained in the same state and no one dared to disturb him slowly at last he moved his eyes from my face as if he were waking from a vision and cast them round the room then he said in a low voice who s the man i want to know his name ham glanced at me and suddenly i felt a shock that struck me there s a man suspected said mr who is it r implored ham go out a bit and let me tell him what i must you t ought to hear it sir i the shock again i sank down in a chair and tried to some reply but my tongue was and my sight was weak i want to know his name i heard said once more david for some time past ham faltered there s been a servant about here at odd times there s been a gen n too both of em belonged to one another mr stood fixed as before but now looking at him the servant pursued ham was seen along with our poor girl last night he s been in hiding about here this week or over he was thought to have gone but he was hiding t stay r t i felt s arm round my neck but i could not have moved if the house had been about to fall upon me a strange and horses was outside town this morning on the road a afore the day broke ham went on the servant w ent to it and come from it and went to it again when he went to it again em ly was nigh him the t other was inside he s the man for the lord s love said mr falling back and putting out his hand as if to keep off what he dreaded t tell me his name s r exclaimed ham in a broken voice it ain t no fault of and i am far from laying of it to you but his name is and he s a damned villain mr uttered no cry and shed no tear and moved no more until he seemed to wake again all at once and pulled down his rough coat from its in a corner bear a hand with this i m struck of a heap and can t do it he said impatiently bear a hand and help me well when somebody had done so now give me that hat ham asked him whither he was going i m a going to seek my niece i m a going to seek my em ly i m a going first to in that boat and sink it where i would have him as i m a soul if i had had one thought of what was in him as he sat afore me he said wildly holding out his clenched right hand as he sat afore me face to face strike me down dead but i d have him and thought it right i m a going to seek my niece where cried ham himself before the door anywhere i m a going to seek my niece through the david fm a going to find my poor niece in her shame and bring her back no one stop me i tell you i m a going to seek my niece no no cried mrs coming between them in a fit of crying no no dan l not as you are now seek her in a little while my lone dan l and that ll be but right but not as you are now sit ye down and give me your forgiveness for having ever been a to you dan l what have my ever been to this and let us speak a word about them times when she was first an orphan and when ham was too and when i was a poor woman and you took me in it soften your poor heart dan l laying her head upon his shoulder and you ll bear your sorrow better but you know the promise dan l as you have done it unto one of the least of these you have done it unto me and that can never fail under this roof that s been our shelter for so many many year he was quite passive now and when i heard him crying the impulse that had been upon me to go down upon my knees and ask their pardon for the desolation i had caused and curse yielded to a better feeling my heart found the same relief and i cried too chapter the beginning of a long journey what is natural in me is natural in many other men i infer and bo i am not afraid to write that i never had loved better than when the ties that bound me to him were broken in the keen distress of the discovery of his i thought more of all that was brilliant in him i softened more towards all that
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was good in him i did more justice to the qualities that might have made him a man of a noble nature and a great name than ever i had done in the height of my devotion to him deeply as i felt my own unconscious part in his of an honest home i that if i had been brought face to face with him i could not have uttered one reproach i should have loved him so well still though he fascinated me no longer i should have held in so much tenderness the memory of my for him that i think i should have been as weak as a spirit wounded child in all but the entertainment of a thought that we could ever be re united that thought i never had i felt as he had felt that all was at end between us what his of me were i have never known they were enough perhaps and easily dismissed but mine of him were as the of a cherished friend who was dead yes long removed from the scenes of this poor history my sorrow may bear involuntary witness against you at the judgment throne but my angry thoughts or my reproaches never will i know the news of what had happened soon spread through the town that as i passed along the streets next morning i overheard the people speak of it at their doors many were hard upon her some few were hard upon him but towards her second father and her lover there was but one sentiment among all kinds of david people a respect for in their distress prevailed was full of gentleness and delicacy the men kept apart when those two were seen early walking with slow steps on the beach and stood in knots talking among themselves it was on the beach close down by the sea that i found them it would have been easy to perceive that they had not slept all even if had failed to tell me of their still sitting as i left them when it was broad day they looked worn and i thought mr s head was bowed in one night more than in all the years i had known him but they were both as grave and steady as the sea itself then lying beneath a dark sky et with a heavy roll upon it as if it breathed in its rest and touched on the horizon with a strip of silvery from the unseen sun we have had a of talk sir said mr to me when we had all three walked a little while in silence of what we ought and t ought to do but we see our course now i happened to glance at ham then looking out to sea upon the distant light and a frightful thought came into my mind not that his face was angry for it was not i nothing but an expression of stern determination in it that if ever he encountered he would kill him my here sir said mr is done i m a going to seek my he stopped and went on in a firmer voice i m a going to seek her that s my he shook his head when i asked him where he would seek her and inquired if i were going to london to morrow i told him i had not gone to day fearing to lose the chance of being of any service to him but that i was ready to go when he would ni go along with you sir he rejoined if you re agreeable tomorrow we walked again for a while in silence ham he presently resumed he ll hold to his present work and go and live along with my sister the old boat yonder will you desert the old boat mr i gently inter posed my station r he returned ain t there no longer david and if ever a boat since there was darkness on the of the deep that one s gone down but no sir no i t mean as it should be deserted fur from that we walked again for a while as before until he explained my wishes is sir as it shall look day and night winter and summer as it has always looked since she first it if ever she should come a wandering back i wouldn t have the old place seem to cast her off you understand but seem to tempt her to draw to t and to peep in maybe like a ghost out of the wind and rain through the old at the old seat by the fire then maybe r none but there she might take heart to creep in trembling and might come to be laid down in her old bed and rest her weary head where it was once so gay i could not speak to him in reply though i tried every night said mr as lar as the night comes the candle must be stood in its old pane of glass that if ever she should see it it may seem to say come back my child come back if ever there s a knock ham a soft knock dark at your aunt s door t you go nigh it let it be her not you that sees my fallen child he walked a little in front of us and kept before us for some during this interval i glanced at ham again and observing the same expression on his face and his eyes still directed to the distant light i touched his arm twice i called him by his name in the tone in which i might have tried to rouse a before he me when i at last inquired on what his thoughts were so bent he replied on what
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her misfortunes when do you suppose her small voice would have been heard little have as much need to live if she was the bitterest and of but she couldn t do it no she might whistle for her bread and butter till she died of air miss sat down on the again and took out her handkerchief and wiped her eyes be thankful for me if you have a kind heart as i think you have she said that while i know well what i am i can be cheer david ful and it all i am thankful for myself at any rate that i can find my tiny way through the world without being to any one and that in return for all that is thrown at me in folly or vanity as i go along i can back if i don t brood over all i want it is the better for me and not the worse for any one if i am a for you giants be gentle with me miss replaced her handkerchief in her pocket looking at me w ith very intent expression all the while and pursued i saw you in the street just now you may suppose i am not able to walk as a s you with my short legs and short breath and i couldn t overtake you but i guessed where you came and came after you i have been here before you to day but the good woman wasn t at home do you know her i demanded i know of her and about her she replied from and j i was there at seven o clock this morning do you remember what said to me about this unfortunate girl that time when i saw you both at the inn the great bonnet on miss s head and the greater bonnet on the wall began to go backwards and forwards again when she asked this question i remembered very well what she referred to having had it in my thoughts many times that day i told her so may the father of all evil confound him said the little woman holding up her forefinger between me and her sparkling eyes and ten times more confound that wicked servant but i it was who had a boyish passion for her i i repeated child child in the name of blind ill fortune cried miss wringing her hands impatiently as she went to and fro again upon the why did you praise her so and blush and look disturbed i could not conceal from myself that i had done this though for a reason very different from her supposition what did i know said miss taking out her handkerchief again and giving one little stamp on the ground whenever at short intervals she applied it to her eyes with both hands at once david he was crossing you and you i saw and you were soft wax in his hands i saw had i left the room a minute when his man told me that young innocence so he called you and you may call him old guilt all the days of your life had set his heart upon her and she was giddy and liked him but his master was resolved that no harm should come of it more for your sake than for hers and that that was their business here how could hut him i saw soothe and please you by his praise of her you w ere the first to mention her name you owned to an old admiration of her you were hot and cold and red and white all at once when i spoke to you of her what could i think what did i think but that you were a young in everything but experience and had fallen into hands that had experience enough and could manage you having the fancy for your own good oh oh i oh they were afraid of my finding out the truth exclaimed miss getting oflf the and trotting up and down the kitchen with her two short arms lifted up because i am a sharp little thing i need be to get through the world at all and they deceived me altogether and gave the poor unfortunate girl a letter which i fully believe was the beginning of her ever speaking to who was left behind on purpose i stood amazed at the revelation of all this looking at miss as she walked up and down the kitchen until she was out of breath when she sat upon the again and her face with her handkerchief shook her head for a long time without otherwise and without silence my country rounds she added at length brought me to mr the night before last what i happened to find out there about their secret way of coming and going without you which was strange led to my suspecting something wrong i got into the coach from london last night as it came through and was here this morning oh oh oh too late poor little turned so chilly after all her crying and that she turned round on the putting her poor little wet feet in among the ashes to warm them and sat looking at the fire like a large doll i sat in a chair on the other side of the hearth david lost in unhappy reflections and looking at the fire too and sometimes at her i must go she said at last rising as she spoke it s late you don t me meeting her sharp glance which was as sharp as ever when she asked me i could not on that short challenge answer no quite frankly come said she accepting the offer of my hand to help her over the and looking wistfully up into my face you know you wouldn t me
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if i was a full sized woman i felt that there was much truth in this and i felt rather ashamed of myself you are a young man she said nodding take a word of advice even from three foot nothing try not to associate bodily defects with mental my good friend except for a reason she had got over the now and i had got over my suspicion i told her that i believed she had given me a faithful account of herself and that we had both been instruments in hands she thanked me and said i was a good fellow now mind she exclaimed turning back on her way to the door and looking at me with her forefinger up again i have some reason to suspect from what i have heard my ears are always open i can t afford to spare what powers i have that they are gone abroad but if ever they return if ever any one of them returns while i am alive i am more likely than another going about as i do to find it out soon whatever i know you shall know if ever i can do anything to serve the poor betrayed girl i will do it faithfully please heaven and had better have a at his back than little i placed faith in this last statement when i marked the look with which it was accompanied trust me no more but trust me no less than you would trust a full sized woman said the little creature touching me on the wrist if ever you see me again unlike what i am now and hke what i was when you first saw me observe what company i am in call to mind that i am a very helpless and little thing think of me at home with my brother like myself and david sister like myself when my day s work is done perhaps you wont then be very hard upon me or surprised if i can be distressed and serious good night i gave miss my hand with a very different opinion of her from that which i had hitherto entertained and opened the door to let her out it was not a trifling business to get the great umbrella up and properly balanced in her grasp but at last i successfully accomplished this and saw it go down the street through the rain without the least appearance of having anybody underneath it except when a heavier fall than usual from some water sent it over on one side and discovered miss struggling violently to get it right after making one or two to her relief which were rendered futile by the umbrella s on again like an immense bird before i could reach it i came in went to bed and slept till morning in the morning i was joined by mr and my old nurse and we went at an early hour to the coach office where mrs and ham e waiting to take leave of us r ham whispered drawing me aside while mr was his bag among the luggage his life is quite broke up he t know he s going he t know what s afore him he s bound upon a voyage that ll last on and off all the rest of his days take my for t unless he finds what he s a seeking of i am sure you ll be a friend to him r trust me i indeed said i shaking hands with ham earnestly very kind sir one thing i m in good employ vou know r and i han t no way now of spending what i gets money s of no use to me no more except to if you can lay it out for him i shall do my work with a better art though as to that sir and he spoke very steadily and mildly you re not to think but i shall work at all times like a man and act the best that lays in my power i told him i was well convinced of it and i hinted that i hoped the time might even come when he would cease to lead the lonely he naturally contemplated now david no sir lie said shaking his head all that s past and over with me sir no one can never fill the place that s empty but you ll bear in mind about the money as s at all times some laying by for him reminding him of the fact that mr derived a steady though certainly a very moderate income from the of his late brother in law i promised to do so we then took leave of each other i cannot leave him even now without remembering with a pang at once his modest fortitude and his great sorrow as to mi s if i were to endeavour to describe how she ran down the street by the side of the coach seeing nothing but mr on the roof through the tears she tried to repress and dashing herself against the people who were coming in the opposite direction i should enter on a task of some difficulty therefore i had better leave her sitting on a baker s door step out of breath with no shape at all remaining in her bonnet and one of her shoes off lying on the pavement at a considerable distance when we got to our journey s end our first pursuit was to look about for a little lodging for where her brother could have a bed we were so fortunate as to find one of a very clean and cheap description over a s shop only two streets removed from me when we had engaged this i bought some cold meat at an eating house and took my fellow travellers home to tea a proceeding i regret
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it if the likeness of that face t turn to burning fire at the thought of offering money to me for my child s and ruin it s as bad i t know being a lady s but what it s worse she changed now in a moment an angry flush her features and she said in an manner grasping the tightly with her hands what compensation can you make to me for opening such a pit between me and my son what is your love to mine what is your separation to ours miss softly touched her and bent down her head to whisper but she would not hear a word no not a word let the man listen to what i say my son who has been the object of my life to whom its every thought has been devoted whom i have gratified from a child in every wish from whom i have had no separate existence since his birth to take up in a moment with a miserable girl and avoid me to repay my confidence with deception for her sake and quit me for her to set this wretched fancy against his mother s claims upon his duty love respect gratitude claims that every day and hour of his life should have into ties that could be proof against is this no injury again tried to soothe her again i say not a v if he can stake his all upon the object i can stake my all upon a greater purpose let go where he will with the means that my love has secured to him does he think to reduce me by long absence he knows his mother very little if he does let him put away his whim now and he is welcome back let him not put her away now and he never shall come near me living or dying while i can raise my hand to make a sign against it unless being rid of her for ever he comes humbly to me and for my forgiveness this is my right this is the acknowledgment i will have this is the separation that there is between us and is this she added looking at her visitor david with the proud air with which she had begun no injury while i heard and saw the mother as she said these words i seemed to hear and see the son them all that i had ever seen in him of an wilful spirit i saw in her all the understanding that i had now of his energy became an understanding of her character too and a perception that it was in its strongest springs the same she now observed to me aloud her former restraint that it was useless to hear more or to say more and that she begged to put an end to the inter she rose with an air of dignity to leave the room when mr signified that it was needless t fear me being any to you i have no more to say ma am he remarked as he moved towards the door i come with no hope and i take away no hope i have done what i should be done but i never looked fur any good to come of my where i do this has been too evil a house for me and mine for me to be in ray right senses and expect it with this we departed leaving her standing by her elbow chair a picture of a noble presence and a handsome face we had on our way out to cross a paved hall with glass sides and roof over which a vine was trained its leaves and shoots were green then and the day being sunny a pair of glass doors leading to the garden were thrown open entering this way with a noiseless step when we were close to them addressed herself to me you do well she said indeed to bring this fellow here such a of rage and scorn as darkened her face and flashed in her jet black eyes i could not have thought even into that face the made by the hammer was as usual in this excited state of her features strongly marked when the throbbing i had seen before came into it as i looked at her she absolutely lifted up her hand and struck it this is a fellow she said to champion and bring here is he not you are a true man miss i returned you are surely not so unjust as to condemn me david do you bring division between these two mad creatures she returned don t you know that they are both mad with their own self will and pride is it my doing i returned is it your doing she retorted why do you bring this man here he ie a deeply injured man miss i replied you may not know it i know that james she said with her hand on her bosom as if to prevent the storm that was raging there from being loud has a false corrupt heart and is a traitor but what need i know or care about this fellow and his common niece miss i returned you the injury it is sufficient already i will only say at parting that you do him a great wrong i do him no wrong she returned they are a worthless set i would have her whipped mr passed on without a word and went out at the door oh shame miss shame i said indignantly how can you bear to on his affliction i would on them all she answered i would have his house pulled down i would have her on the face in s and cast her out in the streets to starve if i had the power to sit in judgment on her i would see it
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i don t exactly know what from i suppose from fire i from to she had a objection r david my love was so much on my mind and it was so natural to me to confide in when i found her again by my side of an evening with the old set of implements busily making the tour of my wardrobe that i imparted to her in a way my great secret was strongly interested but i could not get her into my view of the case at all she was prejudiced in my favour and quite unable to understand why i should have any or be low spirited about it the young lady might think herself well off she observed to have such a beau and as to her pa she said what did the gentleman expect for gracious sake i observed however that mr s gown and took down a little and inspired her with greater reverence for the man who was gradually becoming more and more in my eyes every day and about whom a reflected radiance seemed to me to beam when he sat erect in court among his papers like a little light house in a sea of and by it used to be uncommonly strange to me to consider i remember as i sat in court too how those dim old judges and doctors wouldn t have cared for if they had known her how they wouldn t have gone out of their senses with rapture if marriage with had been proposed to them how might have sung and played upon that until she led me to the verge of madness yet not have tempted one of those slow an inch out of his road i despised them to a man frozen out old in the flower beds of the heart i took a personal offence against them all the bench was to me but an insensible the bar had no more tenderness or poetry in it than the bar of a public house taking the management of s affairs into my own hands with no little pride i proved the will and came to a settlement with the duty office and took her to the bank and soon got everything into an orderly train we varied the legal character of these proceedings by going to see some wax work in fleet street melted i should hope these twenty years and by visiting miss s exhibition which i remember as a david of favorable to self examination and repentance and by the tower of london and going to the top of st paul s all these wonders afforded as much pleasure as she was able to enjoy under existing except i think st paul s which from her long attachment to her w became a rival of the picture on the lid and was in some particulars she considered by that work of art s business which was what we used to call common form business in the and very light and the common form business was being settled i took her down to the office one morning to pay her bill mr had stepped out old said to get a gentleman sworn for a marriage license but as i knew he would be back directly our place lying close to the s and to the general s office too i told to wait we w ere a little like in the as regarded transactions generally making it a rule to look more or less cut up when we had to deal with in mourning in a similar feeling of delicacy we were always and light hearted with the license therefore i hinted to that she would find ir much recovered from the shock of mr s and indeed he came in like a bridegroom but neither nor i had eyes for him when we saw in company with him mr he was very httle changed his hair looked as thick and was certainly as black as ever and his glance was as little to be trusted as of old ah said mr you know this gentleman i i made my gentleman a distant bow and barely recognised him he was at first somewhat disconcerted to meet us two together but quickly decided what to do and came up to me i hope he said that you are doing well it can hardly be interesting to you said i yes if you wish to know we looked at each other and he addressed himself to and you said he i am sorry to observe that you have lost your husband j david it s not the first loss i have had in my hfe mr from head to foot i am glad to hope that there is nobody to blame r this one nobody to answer for it ha said he that s a comfortable reflection you have done your duty i have not worn anybody s life away said i am thankful to think no mr i have not and frightened any sweet to an early grave he eyed her gloomily i thought for an instant and said turning his head towards me but looking at my feet instead of my face we are not likely to encounter soon again a source of satisfaction to us both no doubt for such meetings as this can never be agreeable i do not expect that you who always against my just authority exerted for your benefit and should owe me any good will now there is an between us an old one i believe said i interrupting him he smiled and shot as evil a glance at me as could come from his dark eyes it in your baby breast he said it the life of your poor mother you are right i hope you may do better yet i hope you may correct yourself here he ended the
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dialogue which had been carried on in a low voice in a corner of the outer office by passing into mr s room and saying aloud in his manner gentlemen of mr s profession are accustomed to family differences and know how complicated and difficult they always are with that he paid the money for his and receiving it neatly folded from mr together with a shake of the hand and a polite wish for his happiness and the lady s went out of the office i might have had more difficulty in myself to be silent under his words if i had had less difficulty in upon who was only angry on my account good creature that we were not in a place for and that i her to hold her peace she was so unusually roused that i w as glad to david compound for an affectionate by this revival in her mind of our old injuries and to make the best i could of it before mr and the clerks mr did not appear to know what the between mr and myself was which i was glad of for i could not bear to acknowledge him even in my own breast remembering what i did of the history of my poor mother mr seemed to think if he thought anything about the matter that my aunt was the leader of the state party in our family and that there was a rebel party commanded by somebody else so i gathered at least from what he said while we were waiting for mr to make out s bill of costs miss he remarked is very firm no doubt and not likely to give way to opposition i have an admiration for her character and i may congratulate you on being on the right side differences between relations are much to be but they are extremely general and the great thing is to be on the right side meaning i take it on the side of the interest rather a good marriage this i believe said mr i explained that i knew nothing about it indeed he said speaking from the few words mr dropped as a man frequently does on these occasions and from what miss let fall i should say it was rather a good marriage do you mean that there is money sir i asked yes said mr i understand there s money beauty too i am told indeed is his new wife young just of age said mr so lately that i should think they had been waiting for that lord deliver her said so very emphatically and unexpectedly that we were all three until came in with the bill old soon appeared however and handed it to mr to look over mr settling his chin in his and rubbing it softly went over the with a air as if david it were all s doing and handed it back to ey with a bland sigh yes he said that s right quite right i should have been extremely happy to have limited these charges to the actual expenditure out of pocket but it is an irksome incident in my professional life that i am not at liberty to consult my own wishes i have a partner mr as he said this with a gentle melancholy which was the next thing to making no charge at all i expressed my on s behalf and paid in bank notes then retired to her lodging and mr and i went into court where we had a divorce suit coming on under an ingenious little now i believe but in virtue of which i have seen several marriages of which the merits were these the husband whose name was thomas had taken out his marriage as thomas only the in case he should not find himself as comfortable as he expected not finding himself as comfortable as he expected or being a little fatigued with his wife poor fellow he now came forward by a friend after being married a year or two and declared that his name was thomas and therefore he was not married at all which the court confirmed to his great satisfaction i must say that i had my doubts about the strict justice of this and was not even frightened out of them by the of wheat which all but mr argued the matter with me he said look at the world there was good and evil in that look at the law there was good and evil in that it was all part of a system very good there you were i had not the to suggest to s father that possibly we might even improve the world a little if we got up early in the morning and took off our coats to the work but i confessed that i thought we might improve the mr replied that he would particularly advise me to dismiss that idea from my mind as not being worthy of my gentlemanly character but that he would be glad to hear from me of what improvement i thought the susceptible taking that part of the which happened to be nearest david to us for our man was unmarried by tliis time and we were out of court and strolling past the office i submitted that i thought the office rather a managed institution mr inquired in what respect i with all due deference to his experience but with more deference i am afraid to his being s father that perhaps it was a little that the of that court containing the original wills of all persons leaving effects within the immense province of for three whole centuries should be an accidental building never designed for the purpose by the for their own private not even ascertained to be fire proof choked with the important documents
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and himself into the charge of the wine cellar which he constructed an ingenious beast in the hollow trunk of a tree by and bv i saw him with the majority of a on his plate eating his dinner at the feet of i have but an indistinct idea of what happened for some time after this object presented itself to my view i was very david merry i know but it was hollow merriment i attached myself to a young creature in pink with little eyes and with her desperately she received my attention with favour but whether on my account solely or because she had any designs on red i can t say s health was drunk when i drank it i affected to interrupt my conversation for that purpose and to resume it immediately afterwards i caught s eye as i bowed to her and i thought it looked appealing but it looked at me over the head of red and i was the young creature in pink had a mother in green and i rather think the latter separated us from motives of policy there was a general breaking up of the party while the of the dinner were being put away and i strolled off by myself among the trees in a raging and state i was whether i should pretend that i was not well and fly i don t know where upon my gallant grey when and miss mills met me mr said miss mills you are dull i begged her pardon not at all and said miss mills you are dull oh dear no not in the least mr and said miss mills with an almost venerable air enough of this do not allow a trivial misunderstanding to the blossoms of spring which once put forth and cannot be renewed i speak said miss mills from experience of the past the remote past the which sparkle in the sun must not be stopped in mere caprice the in the desert of must not be plucked up idly i hardly knew what i did i was burning all over to that extraordinary extent but i took s little hand and kissed it and she let me i kissed miss mills s hand and we all seemed to my thinking to go straight up to the seventh heaven we did not come down again we stayed up there all the evening at first we strayed to and fro among the trees i with s shy arm drawn through mine and heaven knows folly as it all was it would have been a happy fate to have been struck immortal with those foolish feelings and have strayed among the trees for ever david but too soon we heard the others laughing and talking and calling where s so we went back and they wanted to sing red would have got the case out of the carriage but told him nobody knew where it was but so red was done for in a moment and got it and unlocked it and took the out and sat by her and held her handkerchief and gloves and drank in every note of her dear voice and she sang to me who loved her and all the others might as much as they but they had nothing to do with it i was with joy i was afraid it was too happy to be real and that i should wake in street presently and hear mrs the in getting breakfast ready but sang and others sang and miss mills sang about the echoes in the of memory as if she were a hundred years old and the evening came on and we had tea with a kettle boiling fashion and i was still as happy as ever i was happier than ever when the party broke up and the other people defeated red and all went their several ways and we went ours through the still evening and the dying light with sweet rising up around us mr being a httle drowsy after the champagne honour to the soil that grew the to the that made the wine to the sun that it and to the merchant who it and being fast asleep in a corner of the carriage i rode by the side and talked to she admired my horse and patted him oh what a dear little hand it looked upon a horse and her shawl would not keep right and now and then i drew it round her with my arm and i even fancied that began to see how it was and to understand that he must make up his mind to be friends with me that sagacious miss mills too that amiable though quite used up that little of something less than twenty who had done with the world and mustn t on any account have the echoes in the of memory awakened what a kind thing she did mr said miss mills come to this side of the david carriage a moment if you can spare a moment i want to speak to you behold me on my gallant grey bending at the side of miss mills with my hand upon the carriage door is coming to stay with me she is coming home with me the day after to morrow if you would like to call i am sure papa would be happy to see you what could i do but a silent blessing on miss mills s head and store miss mills s address in the corner of my memory what could i do but tell miss mills with grateful looks and fervent words how much i appreciated her good offices and what an value i set upon her friendship then miss mills dismissed me saying go back to and i went and leaned out of the carriage to
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were sitting on the sofa by and by quiet enough and was lying in her lap peacefully at me it was off my mind i was in a state of perfect rapture and i were engaged i suppose we had some notion that this was to end in marriage david we must have had some because that we were never to be married without her papa s consent but in our youthful i don t think that we really looked before us or behind us or had any beyond the ignorant present we were to keep our secret from mr but i am sure the idea never entered ray head then that there was anything in that miss mills was more than usually pensive when going to find her brought her back i apprehend because there was a tendency in what had passed to awaken the echoes in the of memory but she gave us her blessing and the assurance of her lasting friendship and spoke to us generally a became a voice from the what an idle time it was what an happy foolish time it was when i measured s er for a that was to be made of forget me and when the to whom i took the measure found me out and laughed over his order book and charged me anything he liked for the pretty little toy with its blue stones so associated in my remembrance with s hand that yesterday when i saw such another by chance on the finger of my own daughter there was a momentary stirring in my heart like pain when walked about exalted with my secret and full of my own interest and felt the dignity of lo ing and of being beloved so much that if i had walked the air i could not have been more above the people not so situated who were creeping on the earth when we liad those meetings in the garden of the square and sat within the dingy summer house so happy that i love the london to this hour for nothing else and see the of the in their smoky feathers when we had our first great quarrel within a week of our and when sent me back the ring in a despairing cocked hat note wherein she used the terrible expression that our love had begun in folly and ended in madness which dreadful occasioned me to tear my hair and cry that all was over david when under cover of the night i flew to miss mills whom i saw by in a back kitchen where there was a and implored miss mills to between us and insanity when miss mills undertook the office and returned with us from the pulpit of her own bitter youth to mutual concession and the of the desert of when we cried and made it up and were so again that the back kitchen and all changed to love s own temple where we arranged a plan of correspondence through miss mills always to comprehend at least one letter on each side every day idle time what an happy foolish time of all the times of mine that time has in his grip there is none that in one i can smile at half so much and think of half so tenderly chapter my aunt me i wrote to as soon as and i were engaged i wrote her a long letter in which i tried to make her comprehend how i was and what a darling was i entreated not to regard this as a thoughtless passion which could never yield to any other or had the least resemblance to the boyish fancies that we used to joke about i assured her that its was quite and expressed my that nothing like it had ever been known somehow as i wrote to on a fine evening by my open window and the remembrance of her clear calm eyes and gentle face came stealing over me it shed such a peaceful influence upon the hurry and agitation in which i had been living lately and of which my very happiness partook in some degree that it soothed me into tears i remember that i sat resting my head upon my hand when the letter was half done a general fancy as if were one of the elements of my natural home as if in the retirement of the house made almost sacred to me by her presence and i must be happier than anywhere as if in love joy sorrow hope or disappointment in all emotions my heart turned naturally there and found its refuge and best friend of i said nothing i only told her there had been s id grief at on account of s flight and that on me it had made a double wound by reason of the circumstances attending it i knew how quick she always was to divine the truth and that she would never be the first to breathe his name to this letter i received an answer by return of post as i read it i seemed to hear speaking to me it was hke her cordial voice in my ears what can i say more i david while i had been away from home lately had called twice or thrice finding within and being informed by who always volunteered that information to would receive it that she was my old nurse he had a good humoured acquaintance with her and had stayed to have a httle chat with her about me so said but i am afraid the chat was all on her own side and of length as she was very difficult indeed to stop god bless her when she had me for her theme this reminds me not only that i expected on a certain afternoon of his own which was now come but that mrs had resigned everything
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to her office the salary until should cease to present herself mrs after holding ers conversations respecting in a very high pitched voice on the staircase with some invisible it would appear for speaking she was quite alone at those times addressed a letter to me developing her views beginning it with that statement of universal application which fitted every occurrence of her life namely that she was a mother herself she went on to inform me that she had once seen very different days but that at all periods of her existence she had a constitutional objection to and she named no names she said let them the cap fitted wear it but and especially in weeds this was she had ever accustomed herself to look down upon if a gentleman was the victim of and but still no names that was his own pleasure he had a right to please himself so let him do all that she mrs for was that she should not be brought in contact with such persons therefore she begged to be excused from any further attendance on the top set until things was as they formerly was and as they could be wished to be and further mentioned that her little book would be found upon the breakfast table every saturday morning when she requested an immediate settlement of the same with the benevolent view of saving trouble and an ill to all parties after this mrs confined herself to making on the david stairs principally with and endeavouring to into breaking her legs i found it rather to live in this state of siege but too much afraid of mrs to see any way out of it my dear cried appearing at my door in spite of all these obstacles how do you do my dear said i i am delighted to see you at last and very sorry i have not been at home before but i have been so much yes yes i know said of course tour s in london i think what did you say she excuse me miss d you know said colouring m his great delicacy lives in london i oh yes near london mine perhaps you recollect said with a serious look lives down in one of ten consequently i am not so much engaged as you in that sense i wonder you can bear i returned to see her so seldom said thoughtfully it does seem a wonder i suppose it is because there s no help for it i suppose so i replied with a smile and not without a blush and because you have so much constancy and patience dear me said considering about it do i strike you in that way really i didn t know that i had but she is such an dear girl herself that it s possible she may have imparted something of those virtues to me now you mention it i shouldn t wonder at all i assure you she is always forgetting herself and taking care of the other nine is she the eldest i inquired oh dear no said the eldest is a beauty he saw i suppose that i could not help smiling at the simplicity of this reply and added with a smile upon his own face not of course but that my pretty name i always think very pretty said l david not of course but that is beautiful too in my eyes and would be one of the dearest girls that ever was in anybody s eyes i should think but when i say the eldest is a beauty i mean she really is a he seemed to be describing clouds about himself with both hands splendid you know said indeed said i oh i assure you said something very uncommon indeed then you know being formed for society and admiration and not being able to enjoy much of it in consequence of their means she naturally gets a little irritable and sometimes puts her in good humour is the youngest i oh dear no i said his chin the two youngest are only nine and ten em the second daughter perhaps i no said s the second has something the matter with her poor the malady will w ear out by and by the doctors say but in the meantime she has to lie down for a nurses her s the fourth is the mother i inquired oh yes said she is she is a very superior woman indeed but the damp country is not adapted to her constitution and in fact she has lost the use of her limbs dear me said i very sad is it not returned but in a merely domestic view it is not so bad as it might be because takes her place she is quite as much a mother to her mother as she is to the other nine i felt the greatest admiration for the virtues of this young lady and honestly with the view of doing my best to prevent the of from being imposed upon to the of their joint prospects in life inquired how mr was he is quite well field thank you said i am not living with him at present no no you see the truth is said in a whisper he has david changed his name to in consequence of his temporary em and he don t come out till after dark and then in spectacles there was an execution put into our house for rent mrs was in such a dreadful state that i really couldn t resist giving my name to that second bill we spoke of here you may imagine how delightful it was to my feelings to see the matter settled with it and mrs recover her hum said i not that her happiness was of long duration pursued for
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unfortunately within a week another execution came in it broke up the establishment i have been living in a furnished apartment since then and the have been very private indeed i hope you won t think it selfish if i mention that the carried off my little round table with the marble top and s flower pot and stand what a hard thing i exclaimed indignantly it was a it was a pull said with his usual at that expression i don t mention it reproachfully however but with a motive the fact is i was unable to them at the time of their in the first place because the having an idea that i wanted them ran the price up to an extravagant extent and in the second place because i hadn t any money now i have kept my eye since upon the s shop said with a great enjoyment of his mystery which is up at the top of court road and at last to day i find them put out for sale i have only noticed them from over the way because if the saw me bless you he d ask any price for them what has occurred to me having now the money is that perhaps you wouldn t object to ask that good nurse of yours to come with me to the shop i can show it her from round the corner of the next street and make the best bargain for them as if they were for herself that she can the delight with which this plan to me and the sense he had of its uncommon are among the things in my remembrance i told him that my old nurse would be delighted to assist him of lift david and that we would all three take the field together but on one condition that condition was that he should make a solemn resolution to grant no more of his name or anything else to mr my dear said i have already done so because i begin to feel that i have not only been but that i have been positively unjust to my word being passed to myself there is no longer any apprehension but i pledge it to you too with the greatest readiness that first unlucky obligation i have paid i have no doubt mr would have paid it if he could but he could not one thing i ought to mention which i like very much in mr field it to the second obligation which is not yet due he don t tell me that it is provided for but he says it will be now i think there is something very fair and honest about that i was unwilling to damp my good friend s confidence and therefore assented after a little further conversation we went round to the s shop to declining to pass the evening with me both because he endured the apprehensions that his property would be bought by somebody else before he could re purchase it and because it was the evening he always devoted to writing to the dearest girl in the world i never shall forget him peeping round the corner of the street in court road w was for the precious articles or his agitation when she came slowly towards ns after vainly offering a price and was hailed by the and went back again the end of the was that she bought the property on tolerably easy terms and was transported with pleasure i am very much obliged to you indeed said on hearing it was to be sent to where he that night if i might ask one other favor i hope you wouldn t think it absurd i said beforehand certainly not then if you would be good enough said to to get the flower pot now i think i should like it being s to carry it home myself was glad to get it for him and he overwhelmed her david copper field with thanks and went his way up court road carrying the flower pot affectionately in his arms with one of the most expressions of countenance i ever saw we then turned back towards my chambers as the shops had charms for which i never knew them possess in the same degree for anybody else i sauntered easily along amused by her staring in at the windows and waiting for her as often as she chose we were thus a good while in getting to the on our way up stairs i called her attention to the sudden disappearance of mrs s and also to the prints of recent footsteps we were both very much surprised coming higher up to find my outer door standing open which i had shut and to hear voices inside we looked at one another without knowing what to make of this and went into the sitting room what was my amazement to find of all people upon earth my aunt there and mr dick my aunt sitting on a quantity of luggage with her two birds before her and her cat on her knee like a female robinson drinking tea mr dick leaning thoughtfully on a great such as we had often been out together to fly with more luggage piled about him my dear aunt cried i why what an unexpected pleasure we cordially embraced and mr dick and i cordially shook hands and mrs who was busy making tea and could not be too attentive cordially said she had well as mr would have his heart in his mouth when he sees his dear relations said my aunt to who before her awful presence how are you p you remember my aunt said i for the love of goodness child exclaimed my aunt don t call the woman by that south sea island name if she married and got rid of it which
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was the best thing she could do why don t you give her the benefit of the change what s your name now p said my aunt as a compromise for the ma am said with a well that s human said my aunt it sounds less as if you wanted a missionary how d ye do i hope you re well david and tliat we would all three take the field together but on condition that condition was that he should make a solemn resolution to grant no more of his name or anything else to mr my dear said i have already done so because i begin to feel that i have not only been but that i have been positively unjust to my word being passed to myself there is no longer any apprehension but i pledge it to you too with the greatest readiness that first unlucky obligation i have paid i have no doubt mr would have paid it if he could but he could not one thing i ought to mention which i like very much in mr it to the second obligation which is not yet due he don t tell me that it is provided for but he says it be now i think there is something very fair and honest about that i was unwilling to damp my good friend s confidence and therefore assented after a little further conversation we went round to the s shop to declining to pass the evening with me both because he endured the apprehensions that his property would be bought by somebody else before he could re purchase it and because it was the evening he always devoted to writing to the dearest girl in the w i never shall forget him peeping round the corner of the street in court road while was for the precious articles or his agitation when she came slowly towards u after vainly offering a price and was hailed by the and went back again the end of the was that she bought the property on tolerably easy terms and was transported i am very much obliged to you indeed said on it was to be sent to where he lived that ht if i ht ask one other favor i hope you wouldn t think it absurd i said beforehand certainly not then if you would be good enough said to to get the flower pot now i think i should hke it being s to carry it home myself was glad to get it for him and he overwhelmed her david c p p e f i e l d with thanks and went his way up court road carrying the flower pot affectionately in his arms with one of the most delighted expressions of countenance i ever saw we then turned back towards my chambers as the shops had charms for which i never knew them possess in the same degree for anybody else i sauntered easily along amused by her staring in at the windows and waiting for her as often as she chose we were thus a good while in getting to the on our way up stairs i called her attention to the sudden disappearance of mrs s and also to the prints of recent footsteps we were both very much surprised coming higher up to find my outer door standing open which i had shut and to hear voices inside we looked at one another without knowing what to make of this and went into the sitting room what was my amazement to find of all people upon earth my aunt there and mr dick my aunt sitting on a quantity of luggage with her two birds before her and her cat on her knee like a female robinson drinking tea mr dick leaning thoughtfully on a great such as we had often been out together to fly with more luggage piled about him my dear aunt cried i why what an unexpected pleasure we cordially embraced and mr dick and i cordially shook hands and mrs who was busy making tea and could not be too attentive cordially said she had well as mr would have his heart in his mouth when he sees his dear relations said my aunt to who before her awful presence are you t you remember my aunt said i for the love of goodness child exclaimed my aunt don t call the woman by that south sea island name if she married and got rid of it which was the best thing she could do why don t you give her the benefit of the change what s your name now p said my aunt as a compromise for the ma am said with a well that s human said my aunt it sounds les as if you wanted a missionary d ye do i hope you re well david c p p e r f i e l d encouraged by these gracious words and by my aunt s extending her hand came forward and took the hand and her we are older than we were i see said my aunt we have only met each other once before you know a nice business we made of it then trot my dear another cup i handed it to my aunt who was in her usual state of figure and ventured a remonstrance with her on the subject of her on a box let me draw the sofa here or the easy chair aunt said i why should you be so uncomfortable thank you trot replied my aunt i prefer to sit upon my property here my aunt looked hard at mrs and observed we needn t trouble you to wait ma am shall i put a little more tea into the pot afore i go ma am said mrs no i thank you ma am replied my aunt would you let
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me fetch another pat of butter ma am said mrs or would you be persuaded to try a new laid or should i a ain t there nothing i could do for your dear aunt mr nothing ma am returned my aunt i shall do very well i thank you mrs who had been incessantly smiling to express sweet temper and incessantly holding her head on one side to express a general of constitution and incessantly rubbing her hands to express a desire to be of service to all deserving objects gradually smiled herself one sided herself and rubbed herself out of the room dick said my aunt you know what i told you about time and wealth mr dick with rather a scared look as if he had forgotten it returned a hasty a in the affirmative mrs is one of them said my aunt i ll trouble you to look after the tea and let me have another cup for i don t fancy that woman s pouring out i knew my aunt sufficiently well to know that she had something v of s david of importance on her mind and that there was far more matter in this arrival than a stranger might have supposed i noticed how her eye on me when she thought my attention otherwise occupied and what a curious process of hesitation appeared to be on within her while she preserved her outward and composure i began to reflect whether i had done anything to her and my conscience whispered me that i had not yet told her about could it by any means be that i wondered as i knew she would only speak in her own good time i sat down near her and spoke to the birds and played with the cat and was as easy as i could be but i was very far from being really easy and i should still have been so even if mr dick leaning over the great behind my aunt had not taken every secret opportunity of shaking his head darkly at me and pointing at her trot said my aunt at last when she had finished her tea and carefully smoothed down her dress and wiped her lips you needn t go trot have you got to be firm and self i hope so aunt what do you think inquired miss i think so aunt then why my love said my aunt looking earnestly at me why do you think i prefer to sit upon this property of mine tonight i shook my head unable to guess because said my aunt it s all i have because i m ruined my dear if the house and every one of us had tumbled out into the river together i could hardly have received a greater shock dick knows it said my aunt laying her hand calmly on my shoulder i am ruined my dear trot all i have in the world is in this room except the cottage and that i have left to let i want to get a bed for this gentleman to night to save expense perhaps you can make up something here for myself anything will do it s only for to night we ll talk about this more to morrow i was roused from my amazement and concern for her i am sure for her by her falling on my neck fur a moment and crying david that she only grieved for me in another moment she suppressed this emotion and said with an aspect more triumphant than dejected we must meet boldly and not suffer them to frighten us my dear we must learn to act the play out we must live misfortune down trot chapter depression as soon as i could recover my presence of mind which quite deserted me in the first overpowering shock of my aunt s intelligence i proposed to mr dick to come round to the s shop and take possession of the bed which mr had lately the s shop being in market and market being a very different place in those days there was a low wooden before the door not very unlike that before the house where the little man and woman used to live in the old weather glass which pleased mr dick the glory of lodging over this structure would have him i dare say for many but as there were really few to bear beyond the compound of i have already mentioned and perhaps the want of a little more elbow room he was perfectly charmed with his accommodation mrs had indignantly assured him that there wasn t room to swing a cat there but as mr dick justly observed to me sitting down on the foot of the bed nursing his leg you know i don t want to swing a cat i never do swing a cat therefore what does that signify to me p i tried to ascertain whether mr dick had any understanding of the causes of this sudden and great change in my aunt s affairs as i might have expected he had none at all the only account he could give of it was that my aunt had said to him the day before yesterday now dick are you really and truly the philosopher i take you for that then he had said yes he hoped so that then my aunt had said dick i am ruined that then he had said oh indeed that then my aunt had praised him highly which he was very glad of and that then they had come to me and had had porter and on the road david mr dick was so very complacent sitting on the foot of the bed nursing his leg and telling me this with his eyes wide open and a surprised smile that i am sorry to say i was provoked
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the way fishing up treasure or some such tom nonsense explained my aunt rubbing her nose and then she lost in the way again and last of all to set the thing entirely to rights she lost in the way i don t know what the bank shares were worth for a little david copper field hid my aunt cent per cent was the lowest of it i believe but the i was at the other end of the world and tumbled into space for what i know anyhow it fell to pieces and never will and never can pay sixpence and s were all there and there s an end of them least said mended my aunt summary by fixing her eyes with a kind of triumph on whose color was gradually returning dear miss is that all the history said i hope it s enough child said my aunt if there had been more money to lose it wouldn t have been all i dare say would have contrived to throw that after the rest and make another chapter i have httle doubt but there was no more money and there s no more story had at first with suspended breath her still came and went but she breathed more freely i thought i knew why i thought she had had some fear that her unhappy father might be in some way to blame for what had happened my aunt took her hand in hers and laughed is that all repeated my aunt why yes that s all except and she lived happy ever afterwards perhaps i may add that of yet one of these days now you have a wise head so have you trot in some things though i can t compliment you always and here my aunt shook her own at me with an energy peculiar to herself what s to be done here s the cottage taking one time with another will produce say seventy pounds a year i think we may safely put it down at that well that s all we ve got said my aunt with whom it was an as it is with some horses to stop very short when she appeared to be in a fair way of going on for a long while then said my aunt after a rest there s dick he s good for a hundred a year but of course that must be expended on himself i would sooner send him away though i know i am the only person who him than have him and not spend his money on himself how can trot and i do best upon our means i what do you say say aunt i interposed that i must do something david go for a soldier do you mean returned my aunt alarmed or go to sea i won t hear of it you are to be a we re not going to have any on the head in this family if you please sir i was about to explain that i was not desirous of introducing that mode of provision into the family when inquired if my rooms were held for any long term you come to the point my dear said my aunt they are not to be got rid of for six months at least unless they could be and that i don t believe the last man died here five people out of six would die of course of that woman in with the flannel i have a little ready money and i agree with you the best thing we can do is to live the term out here and get dick a bed room hard by i thought it my duty to hint at the discomfort my aunt would sustain from in a continual state of warfare with mrs but she disposed of that objection by declaring that on the first demonstration of she was prepared to astonish mrs for the whole remainder of her natural life i have been thinking said that if ou had time i have a good deal of time i am always disengaged after four or five o clock and i have time early in the morning in one way and another said i conscious of a little as i thought of the hours and hours i had devoted to about town and to and fro upon the road i have abundance of time i know you w ould not mind said coming to me and in a low voice so full of sweet and hopeful consideration that i hear it now the duties of a secretary mind my dear because continued doctor strong has acted on his intention of retiring and has come to live in london and he asked papa i know if he could recommend him one don t you think lie would rather have his favorite old pupil near him than anybody else dear said i what should i do without you you david are always my good angel i told you so i never think of you in any other light answered with her pleasant laugh that one good angel meaning was enough and went on to remind me that the doctor had been used to occupy himself in his study early in the morning and in the evening and that probably my leisure would suit his very well i was scarcely more delighted with the prospect of earning my own bread than with the hope of earning it under my old master in short acting on the advice of i sat down and wrote a r to the doctor stating my object and to call on him next day at ten in the this addressed to for in that place so memorable to me he lived and went out and posted myself without losing a minute wherever was some agreeable token of her noiseless presence
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seemed inseparable from the place when i came back i found my aunt s birds hanging just as they had hung so long in the parlor window of the cottage and my easy chair my aunt s much easier chair in its position at the open window and even the round green fan which my aunt had brought away with her on to the window sill i knew who had done all this by its seeming to have quietly done itself and i should have known in a moment who had arranged my neglected books in the old order of my school days even if i had supposed to be miles away instead of seeing her busy with them and smiling at the disorder into which they had fallen my aunt was quite gracious on the subject of the thames it really did look very well with the sun upon it though not like the sea before the cottage but she could not towards the london smoke which she said everything a complete revolution in which bore a prominent part was being effected in every corner of my rooms in regard of this and i was looking on thinking how little even seemed to do with a good deal of bustle and how much did without any bustle at all when a knock came at the door i think said turning pale it s papa he promised me that he would come t opened the r and admitted not only mr but david i had not seen mr for some time i waa prepared for a great change in him after what i had heard from but his appearance shocked me it was not that he looked many years older though still dressed with the old scrupulous cleanliness or that there was an upon his face or that his eyes were full and or that there was a nervous trembling in his hand the cause of which i knew and had for some years seen at work it was not that he had lost his good looks or his old bearing of a gentleman for that he had not but the thing that struck me most was that with the evidences of his native superiority still upon him he should submit himself to that crawling of meanness the of the two natures in their relative positions s of power and mr s of dependence was a sight more painful to me than i can express if i had seen an taking command of a man i should hardly have thought it a more degrading spectacle he appeared to be only too conscious of it himself when he came in he stood still and with his head bowed as if he felt it this was only for a moment for softly said to him papa here is miss and whom you have not seen for a long while and then he approached and gave my aunt his hand and shook hands more cordially with me in the moment s pause i speak of i saw s countenance form itself into a most ill favored smile saw it too i think for she shrank from him what my aunt saw or did not see i defy the science of to have made out without her own consent i believe there never was anybody with such an countenance when she chose her face might have been a dead wall on the occasion in question for any light it threw upon her thoughts until she broke silence with her usual well said my aunt and he looked up at her for the first time i have been telling your daughter how well i have been of my money for myself because i couldn t trust it to vou as you were growing rusty in business matters we have been taking counsel together and getting on very well all things considered is worth the whole firm in my opinion of the l of david if i may make the remark said with a i fully agree with miss and should he only too if was a partner you re a partner yourself you know returned my aunt and that s about enough for you i expect how do you find yourself sir in acknowledgment of this question addressed to him with extraordinary mr clutching the blue bag he carried replied that he was pretty well he thanked my aunt and hoped she was the same and you master should say pursued i hope i see you well i am rejoiced to see you even under present circumstances i that for he seemed to them very much present circumstances is not what your friends would wish for you but it money makes the man it s i am really unequal with my powers to express what it is said with a jerk but it isn t money here he shook hands with me not in the common way but standing at a good distance from me and lifting my hand up and down like a pump handle that he was a little afraid of and how do you think we are looking master i should say don t you find mr blooming sir years don t tell much in our firm master except in raising up the namely mother and self and in developing he added as an after thought the beautiful namely miss he jerked himself about after this compliment in such an intolerable manner that my aunt who had sat looking straight at him lost all patience deuce take the man said my aunt sternly what s he about don t be sir i ask your pardon miss returned i m aware you re nervous go along with you sir said my aunt anything but appeased don t presume to say so i am nothing of the sort if you re an el sir conduct yourself hke
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one if you re a man control your g david limbs sir good god said my aunt with great indignation i am not going to be and out of my senses mr was rather abashed as most people might have been by this explosion which derived great additional force from the in manner in which my aunt afterwards moved in her chair and shook her head as if she were making or at him but he said to me aside in a meek voice i am well aware master that miss though an excellent lady has a quick temper indeed i think i had the pleasure of knowing her when i was a clerk before you did master and it s only natural i am sure that it should be made quicker by present circumstances the wonder is that it isn t much worse i only called to say that if there was anything we could do in present circumstances mother or self or and we should be really glad i may go so far said with a sickly smile at his partner said mr in a monotonous forced way is active in the business what he says i quite in you know i had an old interest in you apart from that what says i quite in oh what a reward it is said drawing up one leg at the risk of bringing down upon himself another from my aunt to be so trusted in but i hope i am able to do something to him from the of business master is a great relief to me said mr in the same dull voice it s a load off my mind to have such a partner the red fox made him say all this i knew to exhibit him to me in the light he had indicated on the night when he poisoned my rest i saw the same ill favored smile upon his face again and saw how he watched me you are not going papa said anxiously will you not walk back with and me he would have looked to i believe before replying if that worthy had not anticipated him i am myself said on business otherwise i should have been to have kept with my friends but i leave david c p p e r f i e l d my partner to represent the firm miss ever yours i wish you good day master and leave my respects for miss with those words he retired kissing his great hand and at us like a mask we sat there talking about our pleasant old days an hour or two mr left to soon became more like his former self though there was a settled depression upon him which he never shook off for all that he brightened and had an evident pleasure in hearing us recall the little incidents of our old life many of which he remembered very well he said it was like those times to be alone with x o and me and he wished to heaven they had never changed i am sure there was an influence in the placid face of and in the very touch of her hand upon his arm that did wonders for him my aunt who w as busy nearly all this while with in the inner room would not accompany us to the where they were staying but insisted on my going and i went we dined together after dinner as sat beside him as of old and poured out his wine he took what she gave him and no more like a child and we all three sat together at a window as the evening gathered in when it was almost dark he lay down on a sofa his head and bending over him a little while and when she came back to the window it was not so dark but i could bee tears glittering in her eyes i pray heaven that i may never forget the dear girl in her love and truth at that time of my life for if i should i must be drawing near the end and then i would desire to remember her best she filled my heart with such good resolutions strengthened my weakness so by her example so directed i know not how she was too modest and gentle to advise me in many words the wandering and unsettled purpose within me that all the little good i have done and all the harm i have i solemnly believe i may refer to her and how she spoke to me of sitting at the window in the dark listened to my praises of her praised again and round the little fairy figure shed some glimpses of her own pure light that david made it yet more precious and more innocent to me oh sister of my boyhood if i had known then what i knew long afterwards there was a beggar in the street when i went down and as i turned my head towards the window thinking of her eyes he made me start by muttering as if he were an echo of the morning blind blind chapter enthusiasm i began the next day with another into the roman bath and then started for i was not now i was not afraid of the shabby coat and had no after gallant my whole manner of thinking of our late misfortune was changed what i had to do was to show my aunt that her past goodness to me had not been thrown away on an insensible ungrateful object what i had to do was to turn the painful discipline of my younger days to account by going to work with a resolute and steady heart what i had to do was to take my s axe in my hand and clear my own way through the forest of difficulty
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by cutting down the trees until i came to and i went on at a rate as if it could be done by walking when i found myself on the road pursuing a errand from that old one of pleasure with which it was associated it seemed as if a complete change had come on my whole hfe but that did not me with the new life came new purpose new intention great was the labor price ess the reward was the reward and must be won i got into such a transport that i felt quite sorry my coat was david not a little shabby already t wanted to be cutting at those in the forest of difficulty under circumstances that should prove my strength i had a good mind to ask an old man in wire spectacles who was breaking stones upon the road to lend me his hammer for a little while and let me begin to beat a path to out of granite i stimulated myself into such a heat and got so out of breath that i felt as if i had been i don t know how much in this state i went into a cottage that i saw was to let and examined it narrowly for i felt it necessary to be practical it would do for me and admirably with a little front garden for to run about in and bark at the through the and a capital room up stairs for my aunt came out again and faster than ever and dashed up to at such a rate that i was there an hour too early and though i had not been should have been to stroll about to cool myself before i was at all my first care after putting myself under this necessary course of preparation was to find the doctor s house it was not in that part of where mrs lived but quite on the opposite side of the little town when i had made this discovery i went back in an attraction i could not resist to a lane by mrs s and looked over the corner of the garden wall his room was shut up close the doors were standing open and was walking with a quick impetuous step up and down a gravel walk on one side of the lawn she gave me the idea of some fierce that was the length of its chain to and fro upon a beaten track and wearing its heart out i came softly away from my place of observation and avoiding that part of the neighbourhood and wishing i had not gone near it strolled about until it was ten o clock the church with the slender spire that stands on the top of the hill now was not there then to tell me the time an old red brick mansion used as a school was in its place and a fine old house it must have been to go to school at as i recollect it when i approached the doctor s cottage a pretty old place on which he seemed to have expended some money if i might david judge from the and that had the look of being just completed i saw him walking in the garden ax the side and all as if he had never left off walking since the days of my he had his old companions about him too for there were plenty of high trees in the neighbourhood and two or three were on the grass looking after him as if they had been written to about him by the and were observing him closely in consequence knowing the utter of his attention from that distance i made bold to open the gate and walk after him so as to meet him when he should turn round when he did and came towards me he looked at me thoughtfully for a few moments evidently without thinking about me at all and then his benevolent face expressed extraordinary pleasure and he took me by both hands my dear said the doctor you are a man how do you do i am delighted to see you my dear how very much you have improved you are quite yes dear me i hoped he was well and mrs strong too oh dear yes said the doctor s quite well and she be delighted to see you you were always her favorite she said so last night when i showed her your letter and yes to be sure you recollect mr jack perfectly sir of course said the doctor to be sure he pretty well too has he come home sir i inquired from india said the doctor yes mr jack couldn t bear the climate my dear mrs ou have not mi s forgotten the old soldier and in that short time mrs said the doctor was quite vexed about him poor thing so we have got him at home again and we have bought him a httle patent place which with him much better i knew enough of mr jack to suspect from this account david that it was a place where there was not much to do and which was pretty well paid the doctor walking up and down with his hand oa my shoulder and his kind face turned to mine went on now my dear in reference to this proposal of yours it s very gratifying and agreeable to me i am sure but don t you think you could do better you achieved distinction you know when you were with us you are qualified for many good things you have laid a foundation that any edifice may be raised upon and is it not a pity that you should devote the spring time of your life to such a poor pursuit as i can offer i became very
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glowing again and expressing myself in a style i am afraid urged my request strongly reminding the doctor that i had already a profession well well returned the doctor that s true certainly your having a profession and being actually engaged in studying it makes a but my good young friend what s seventy pounds a year it our income doctor strong said i dear me replied the doctor to think of that not that i mean to say it s rigidly limited to seventy pounds a year because i have always contemplated making any young friend i might thus employ a present too undoubtedly said the doctor still walking me up and down with his hand on my shoulder i have always taken an annual present into account my dear said i now really without any nonsense to whom i owe more obligations already than i ever can no no interposed the doctor pardon me if you will take such time as i have and that is my mornings and evenings and can think it worth seventy pounds a year you will do me such a service as i cannot express dear me said the doctor innocently to think that so little should go for so much dear dear and when you can do you will on your word now said the doctor which he had always made a very grave appeal to the honor of us boys david on my word sir returned answering in our old school manner then be it so said the doctor clapping me on the shoulder and still keeping his hand there as we still walked up and down and i shall be twenty times happier sir said i with a little i hope innocent flattery if my employment is to be on the dictionary the doctor stopped clapped me on the shoulder again and exclaimed with a triumph most delightful to behold if i had penetrated to the depths of mortal sagacity my dear young friend you have hit it it is the dictionary how could it be anything else his pockets were as full of it as his head it was sticking out of him in all directions he told me that since his retirement from life he had been advancing with it wonderfully and that nothing could suit him better than the proposed arrangements for morning and evening work as it was his custom to walk about in the day time with his considering cap on his pa were in a little confusion in consequence of mr jack having lately his occasional services as an and not being accustomed to that occupation but we should soon put right what was amiss and go on afterwards when we were fairly at our work i found mr jack s more troublesome to me than i had expected as he had not confined himself to making numerous mistakes but had so mary soldiers and ladies heads over the doctor s manuscript th t i often became involved in of obscurity the doctor was quite happy in the prospect of our going to work together on that wonderful performance and we settled to begin next morning at seven o clock we were to work two hours every morning and two or three s every night except on when i was to rest on sundays o course i was to rest also and i considered these very easy terms our plans being thus arranged to our mutual satisfaction tho doctor took me into the house to present m to mrs strong whom we found in the doctor s new study b r david which he never permitted anybody else to take with those sacred they had postponed their breakfast on my account and we sat down to table together we had not been seated long when i saw an approaching arrival in mi s strong s face before i heard any sound of it a gentleman on horseback came to the gate and leading his horse into the little court with the bridle over his arm as if he was quite at home tied him to a ring in the empty coach house wall and came into the breakfast parlor whip in hand it was mr jack and mr jack was not at all improved by india i thought i was in a state of ferocious virtue however as to young men who were not cutting down the trees in the forest of difficulty and my impression must be received with due allowance mr jack said the doctor mr jack shook hands with me but not very warmly i believed and with an air of languid patronage at which i secretly took great but his languor altogether was quite a wonderful sight except when he addressed himself to his cousin have you this morning mr jack said the doctor i hardly ever take breakfast sir he replied with his head thrown back in an easy chair i find it me is there any news to day inquired the doctor nothing at all sir replied there s an account about the being hungry and discontented down in the north but they are always being hungry and discontented somewhere the doctor looked grave and said as though he wished to change the subject then there s no news at all and no news they say is good news there s a long statement in the paper sir about a murder observed mr but somebody is always being murdered and i didn t read it a display of indifference to all the actions and passions of mankind was not supposed to be such a distinguished quality at that time i think as i have observed it to be considered since i have known it very fashionable indeed i have seen it displayed with david such success that i have encountered some fine ladies and who might as well have been born perhaps it impressed
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me the more then because it was new to me but it certainly did not tend to my opinion of or to strengthen my confidence in mr jack i came out to inquire whether would hke to go to the opera to night said mr turning to her it s the last good night there will be this season and there s a singer there whom she really ought to hear she is perfectly exquisite besides which she is so ugly into languor the doctor ever pleased with what was likely to please his young wife turned to her and said you must go you must go i would rather not she said to the doctor i prefer to remain at home i would much rather remain at home without looking at her cousin she then addressed me and asked me about and whether she should see her and whether she was not likely to come that day and was so much disturbed that i wondered how even the doctor his toast could be blind to what was so obvious but he saw nothing he told her good that she was young and ought to be amused and entertained and must not allow herself to be made dull by a dull old fellow moreover he said he wanted to hear her all the new er s to him and how could she do that well unless she went so the doctor persisted in making the engagement for her and mr jack was to come back to dinner this concluded he went to his patent place i suppose but at all events went away on his horse looking very idle i was curious to find out next morning whether she had been she had not but had sent into london to put her cousin off and had gone out in the afternoon to see and had prevailed upon the doctor to go with her and they had walked home by the fields the doctor told me the evening being delightful i wondered then whether she would have gone if had not been in town and whether had some good influence over her too she did not look very happy i thought but it was a good face a v i l c u r p e k f e l d or a very one i often glanced at it for she sat in the window all the time we were at work and made our breakfast which we took by as we were employed when i left at nine o clock she was kneeling on the ground at the doctor s feet putting on his shoes and for him there was a softened shade upon her face thrown from some green leaves overhanging the open window of the low room and i thought all the way to doctors of the night when i had seen it looking at him as he read i was pretty busy now up at five in the morning and home at nine or ten at night but i had infinite satisfaction in so closely engaged and never walked slowly on any account and felt that the more i tired myself the more i was doing to deserve i had not revealed myself in my altered character to yet because she was coming to see miss mills in a few days and i deferred all i had to tell her until then merely informing her in my letters all our communications were secretly forwarded through miss mills that i had much to tell her in the meantime i put myself on a short allowance of bear s wholly abandoned scented soap and water and sold off three at a prodigious sacrifice as being too luxurious for my stern career not satisfied with all these proceedings but burning with impatience to do something more i went to see now lodging up behind the of a house in castle street born mr dick who had been with me to twice already and had resumed his companionship with the doctor i took with me i took mr dick with me because sensitive to my aunt s and sincerely believing that no slave or worked as i did he had begun to fret and worry himself out of spirits and appetite at having nothing useful to do in this condition he felt more incapable of finishing the memorial than ever and the harder he worked at it the oftener that unlucky head of king charles the first got into it seriously that his malady would increase unless we put some innocent deception upon him and caused him to believe that he was useful or unless we could put him in the way of being really useful which would better i made up my mind to try if could help us before we went i wrote a full statement of all that had hap david and ti wrote me back a capital answer expressive of lis sympathy and friendship we found him hard at work with his and papers re by the sight of the flower pot stand and the httle round table in a corner of the small apartment he received us cordially and made friends with mr dick in a moment mr dick professed an absolute certainty of having seen him before and we both said very likely the first subject on which i had to consult was this i had heard that many men distinguished in various pursuits had begun life by the in parliament having mentioned newspapers to me as one of his hopes i had put the two things together and told in my letter that i wished to know how i could myself for this pursuit now informed me as the result of his inquiries that the mere mechanical acquisition necessary except in rare cases for thorough excellence in it that is to say a perfect and entire command of the mystery of short
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hand writing and reading was about equal in difficulty to the mastery of six languages and that it might perhaps be attained by dint of perseverance in the course of a few years reasonably supposed that this w settle the business but i only feeling that here indeed were a few tall trees to be down immediately resolved to work my way on to through this thicket axe in hand i am very much obliged to you my dear said i i ll begin to morrow looked astonished as he well might but he had no notion as yet of my condition i ll buy a book said i with a good scheme of this art in it i ll work at it at the where i haven t half enough to do i ll take down the speeches in our court for practice my dear fellow i ll master it dear me said opening his eyes i had no idea you were such a determined character i don t know how he should have had for it was new enough to me i passed that off and brought mr dick on the carpet you see said mr dick wistfully if i could exert myself mr if i could beat a drum or blow anything david poor fellow i have little doubt he would have preferred such an employment in his heart to all others who would not have smiled fur the world replied but you are a very good sir you told me so excellent said i and indeed he was he wrote with extraordinary neatness don t you think said you could copy writings sir if i got them for you mr dick looked doubtfully at me eh i shook mv head mr dick shook his and tell him about the memorial said mr dick i explained to that there was a difficulty in keeping king charles the first out of mr dick s mr dick in the meanwhile looking very and seriously at and his thumb but these writings you know that i speak of are already drawn up and finished said after a little consideration mr dick has nothing to do with them wouldn t that make a difference at all events wouldn t it be well to try this gave us new hope and i laying our heads together apart while mr dick anxiously watched us from his chair we a scheme in virtue of which we got him to work next day with triumphant success on a table by the window in street we set out the work procured for him which was to make i forget how many copies of a legal document about some right of a j and on another table we spread the last unfinished original of the great memorial our instructions to mr dick were that he should copy exactly what he had before him without the least departure from the original and that when he felt it necessary to make the slightest allusion to king charles the first he should fly to the memorial we him to be resolute in this and left my aunt to observe him my aunt reported to us afterwards that at first he was like a man playing the kettle drums and constantly divided his attention between the two but that finding this and fatigue him and having his copy there plainly before his eyes he soon set at it in an david orderly business like manner and postponed the memorial to a more convenient time in a word although we took great care that he should have no more to do than was good for him and although he did not begin with the beginning of a week he earned by the following saturday night ten shillings and nine pence and never while i live shall i forget his going about to all the shops in the neighbourhood to change this treasure into or his bringing them to my aunt arranged in the form of a heart upon a waiter with tears of joy and pride in his eyes he was like one under the influence of a charm from the moment of his being employed and if there were a happy man in the world that saturday night it was the grateful creature who thought my aunt the most wonderful woman in existence and me the most wonderful young man no starving now said mr dick shaking hands with me in a corner i ll provide for her sir and he flourished his ten fingers in the air as if they were ten banks i hardly know which was the better pleased or i it really said suddenly taking a letter out of his pocket and giving it to me put mr quite out of my head i the letter mr never missed any possible opportunity of writing a letter was addressed to me by the kindness of t of the inner temple it ran thus my dear you may possibly not be unprepared to receive the intimation that something has turned up i may have mentioned to you on a former occasion that i was in expectation of such an event i am about to establish myself in one of the provincial towns of our favored island where the society may be described as a happy of the agricultural and the in immediate with one of the learned professions mrs and our will accompany me our ashes at a future period will probably be found in the attached to a venerable pile for which the spot to which i refer has acquired a reputation shall i say from china to david in bidding adieu to the modem where we have many i trust not mi s and myself cannot disguise from our minds that we part it may be for years and it may be for ever with an individual linked by strong
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associations to the altar of our domestic life if on the eve of such a departure you will accompany our mutual friend mr thomas to our present abode and there the wishes natural to the occasion you will confer a boon on one who is ever yours i was glad to find that mr had got rid of his dust and ashes and that something really had turned up at last learning from that the invitation referred to the evening then wearing away i expressed my readiness to do honour to it and we went off together to the lodging which mr occupied as mr and which was situated near the top of the gray s inn road the resources of this lodging were so limited that we found the now some eight or nine years old in a turn up in the family sitting room where mr had prepared in a wash hand stand what he called a of the agreeable for which he was famous i had the pleasure on this occasion of the acquaintance of master whom i found a promising boy of about twelve or thirteen very subject to that restlessness of limb which is not an phenomenon in youths of his age i also became once more known to his sister miss in whom as mr told us her mother renewed her youth like the my dear said mr yourself and mr find us on the brink of and will excuse any ts to that position glancing round as i made a suitable reply i observed that th david family effects were already packed and that the amount of luggage was by no means overwhelming i congratulated mrs ou the approaching change my dear mr said mrs of your friendly interest in all our affairs i am well assured my family may consider it if they please but i am a wife and mother and i never will desert mr appealed to by mrs s eye that said mrs that at least is my view my dear mr and mr of the obligation which i took upon myself when repeated the words i take thee i read the service o er with a flat candle on the previous night and the conclusion i derived from it was that never could desert mr and said mrs though it is possible i may be mistaken in my view of the ceremony i never will my dear said mr a little i am not conscious that you are expected to do anything of the sort i am aware my dear mr pursued mrs that i am now about to cast my lot among strangers and i am also aware that the various members of my family to whom mr has written in the most gentlemanly terms announcing that fact have not taken the least notice of mr s communication indeed i may be superstitious said mrs but it appears to me that mr is destined never to receive any answers whatever to the great majority of the communications he writes i may from the silence of my family that they object to the resolution i have taken but i should not allow myself to be from the path of duty mr even by my papa and were they still living i expressed my opinion that this was going in right direction it may be a sacrifice said mrs to one s in a cathedral town but surely mr if it is a sacrifice in me it is much more a sacrifice in a man of mr s abilities oh you are going to a cathedral town said i david mr had been helping us all out of the stand replied to in fact my dear i have entered into arrangements by virtue of which i stand pledged and contracted to our friend to assist and serve him in the capacity of and to be his confidential clerk i stared at mr who greatly enjoyed my surprise i am bound to state to you he said with an official air that the business habits and the prudent suggestions of mrs have in a great measure to this result the to which mrs referred upon a former occasion being thrown down in the form of an advertisement was taken up by my friend and led to a mutual recognition of my friend said mr who is a man of remarkable i desire to speak with all possible respect my friend has not fixed the positive at too high a figure but he has made a great deal in the way of from the pressure of pecuniary difficulties on the value of my services and on the value of those services i pin my faith such address and intelligence as i chance to possess said mr himself with the old genteel air will be devoted to my friend s service i have already some acquaintance with the law as a on civil process and i shall immediately apply myself to the of one of the most eminent and remarkable of our english i believe it is unnecessary to add that i allude to mr justice these observations and indeed the greater part of the observations made that evening were interrupted by mrs s discovering that master was sitting on his boots or holding his head on with both arms as if he felt it loose or accidentally kicking under the table or shuffling his feet over one another or thorn at distances from himself a outrageous to nature o lying sideways with his hair among the wine glasses or developing lis restlessness of limb in some other form with the general interests of society and by master s those discoveries in a i sat the while amazed by mr s e and wondering what it meant until david resumed the thread of the discourse and claimed my attention what i particularly request mr to be
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scene and the god of day is once more high upon the mountain tops on monday next an the arrival of the four o clock afternoon coach at my foot will be on my native heath my name mr resumed his seat on the close of these remarks and drank two glasses of h in grave succession he then said with solemnity of the i of david one thing more i have to do before this separation is complete and that is to perform an act of justice my friend mr thomas has on two several put his name if i may a common expression to bills of exchange fur my accommodation on the first occasion mr thomas was left let me say in short in the the fulfilment of the second has not yet arrived the amount of the first obligation here mr carefully referred to papers was i believe twenty three four nine and a half of the second according to my entry of that transaction eighteen six two these sums united make a total if my calculation is correct to forty one ten eleven and a half my friend will perhaps do me the favor to check that total i did so and found it correct to leave this metropolis said mr and my friend mr thomas without myself of the pecuniary part of this obligation would weigh upon my mind to an extent i have therefore prepared for my friend mr thomas and i now hold in my hand a document which the desired object i beg to hand to my mr thomas my i o u for forty one ten eleven and a half and i am happy to recover my moral dignity and to know that i can once more walk erect before my fellow man with this introduction which greatly affected him mr placed his i u in the hands of and said he wished him well in every relation of life i am persuaded not only that this was quite the same to mr as paying the money but that himself hardly knew the difference until he had had time to think about it mr walked so erect before his fellow man on the strength of this virtuous action that his chest looked half as broad when he lighted us down s we parted with great on both sides and when i had to his own door and was going home alone i thought among the other odd and contradictory things i mused u on that slippery as mr was i was probably indebted to some compassionate ha retained of me as his boy for never having been asked by him david for money i certainly should not have had the moral courage to refuse it and i have no doubt he knew that to his credit be it written quite as well as i did chapter little cold water my new life had lasted for more than a week and i was stronger than ever in those tremendous practical resolutions that i felt the crisis required i continued to walk extremely fast and to have a general idea that i was getting on i made it a rule to take as much out of myself as i possibly could in my way of doing everything to which i applied my energies i made a perfect victim of myself i even entertained some idea of putting myself on a vegetable diet vaguely that in becoming a animal i should sacrifice to as yet little was quite unconscious of my desperate firmness otherwise than as my letters darkly it forth but another saturday came and on that saturday evening she was to be at miss mills s and when mr mills had gone to his club to me in the street by a bird cage in the drawing room middle window i was to go there to tea by this time we were quite settled down in street where mr dick continued his in a state of absolute felicity my aunt had obtained a signal victory over mrs by paying her ofi throwing the first she planted on the stairs out of window and protecting in person up and down the staircase a whom she engaged from the outer world these measures struck such terror to the breast of mrs that she subsided into her own kitchen under the impression that my aunt was mad my aunt being to mrs david c r r e n f i e l d s opinion and everybody else s and rather than the idea mrs of the bold became within a few days so hearted that rather than encounter mv aunt upon the staircase she would endeavour to hide her form behind doors leaving visible however a wide margin of flannel or would shrink into dark corners this grave my aunt such unspeakable satisfaction that i believe she took a delight in up and down with her bonnet perched on the top of her head at times when mi s was to be in the way my aunt being uncommonly neat and ingenious made so many little improvements in our domestic arrangements that i seemed to be richer instead of poorer x the rest she converted the into a dressing room for me and purchased and a for my occupation which looked as hke a in the as a could i was the object of her constant solicitude and my poor mother herself could not have loved me better or studied more how to make me happy had considered herself highly privileged in being allowed to in these labors and although she still retained of her old sentiment of awe in reference to mv aunt had received so many marks of and confidence that they were the best friends possible but the time had now come i am speaking of the saturday when i was to take tea at miss mills
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s when it was necessary for her to return home and enter on the discharge of the duties she had undertaken in behalf of ham so good bye said my aunt and take care of yourself i am sure i never thought i could be sorry to lose you i took to the coach and saw her off she cried at parting and confided her brother to my friendship as ham had done we had heard nothing of him since he went away that and now my own dear said if while you re a you should want any money to spend or if when you re out of your time my dear you should want any to set you up and you must do one or other or both my darling who has such a good right to ask leave to lend it you as my sweet girl s own stupid me david c p p e f i e l d i was not so savagely independent as to say anything in reply but that if ever i borrowed money of anyone i would borrow it of her next to accepting a large sum on the spot i believe this gave more comfort than anything i could have done and my dear whispered tell the pretty little angel that i should so have liked to see her only for a minute and tell her that before she my boy i ll come and make your house so beautiful for you if you ll let me i declared that nobody else should touch it and this gave such delight that she went away in good spirits i fatigued myself as much as i possibly could in the all day by a variety of devices and at the appointed time in the evening repaired to mr mills s street mr mills who was a terrible fellow to fall asleep after dinner had not yet gone out and there was no in the middle window he kept me waiting so long that i fervently hoped the club would fine him for being late at last he came out and then i saw my own hang up the and peep into the balcony to look for me and run in again when she saw i was there while remained behind to bark at an immense butcher s dog iu the street who could have taken him like a came to the drawing room door to meet me and came over his own under the impression that i was a and we all three went in as happy and loving as could be soon carried desolation into the bosom of our joys not that i meant to do it but that i was so full of the subject by asking without the smallest preparation if she could love a beggar my pretty little startled her only association with the word was a yellow face and a or a pair of or a wooden leg or a dog with a stand in his mouth or something of that kind and she stared at me with the most delightful wonder how can you ask me anything so foolish love a beggar my own dearest said i am a beggar how can you be such a silly thing replied david my hand as to sit there telling such stories i ll make bite you her childish way was the most delicious way in the world to me but it was necessary to be explicit and i solemnly repeated my own life i am your ruined david i declare i ll make bite you said shaking her curls if you are so ridiculous but i looked so serious that left off shaking her curls and laid her trembling little hand upon my shoulder and first looked and anxious then began to cry that was dreadful i fell upon my knees before the caressing her and imploring her not to my heart but for some time poor little did nothing but exclaim oh dear oh dear and oh she was so frightened and where was mills and oh take her to mills and go away please until i was almost beside myself at last after an agony of and i got to look at me with a expression of face which i gradually soothed until it was only loving and her soft pretty cheek was lying against mine then i told her with my arms clasped round her how i loved her so dearly and so dearly how i felt it right to offer to release her from her engagement because now i was poor how i never could bear it or recover it if i lost her how i had no fears of poverty if she had none my arm being and my heart inspired by her how i was already working with a courage such as none but lovers knew how i had begun to be practical and to look into the future how a crust well earned was sweeter far than a feast inherited and much more to the same purpose which i delivered in a burst of passionate eloquence quite surprising to myself though i had been thinking about it day and night ever since my aunt had astonished me is your heart mine still dear said i for i knew by her clinging to me that it was oh yes cried oh yes it s all your s oh don t be dreadful dreadful to don t talk about being poor and working hard said closer to me oh don t don t david my dearest love said i the crust well earned oh yes but i don t want to hear any more about said and must have a mutton chop every day at twelve or he ll die i was charmed with her childish winning way i fondly explained to that should have his mutton chop with
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better than i who loved with a love that never mortal had experienced yet but on miss mills observing with despondency that it were well indeed for some hearts if this were so explained that i leave to the observation to mortals of the masculine i then put it to miss mills to say whether she considered that there was or was not any practical merit in the suggestion i had been anxious to make concerning the accounts the housekeeping and tlie book david miss mills after some consideration thus replied mr i will be plain with you mental r and trial supply in some natures the place of years and i will be as plain with you as if i were a lady no the suggestion is not appropriate to our our dearest is a favourite child of nature she is a thing of light and and joy i am free to confess if it could be done it might be well but and miss mills shook her head i was encouraged by this closing admission on the part of miss mills to ask her whether for s sake if she had any opportunity of her attention to such preparations for an earnest life she would avail herself of it miss mills replied in the affirmative so readily that i further asked her if she would take charge of the book and if she ever could it upon s acceptance without her undertake to do me that crowning service miss mills accepted this trust too but was not sanguine and returned looking such a lovely little creature that i really doubted whether she ought to be troubled with anything so ordinary and she loved me so much and was so particularly when she made stand on his hind legs for toast and when she pretended to hold that nose of his against the hot tea pot for punishment because he wouldn t that i felt like a sort of monster who had got into a fairy s bower when i thought of having frightened her and made her cry after tea we had the and sang those same dear old french songs about the im of ever on any account off dancing la ra la la ra la until i felt a much greater monster than before we had only one check to our pleasure and that happened a uttle while before i took my leave when miss mills to make some allusion to to morrow morning i let out that being obliged to exert myself now i got up at five o clock whether had any idea that i was a private i am unable to say but it made a great impression on her and she neither played nor sang any more it was still on her mind when i bade her adieu and she said me in her pretty way as if i were a doll i used to think now don t get up at five o clock you naughty boy it s so my love said i i have work to do but don t do it returned why should you it was impossible to say to that sweet little surprised face otherwise than lightly and that we must work to oh how ridiculous cried how shall we live without said i how any how said she seemed to think she had quite settled the question and gave me such a triumphant little kiss direct from her innocent heart that i would hardly have put her out of conceit with her answer for a fortune well i loved her and i went on loving her most entirely and completely but going on too working pretty hard and busily keeping red hot all the irons i now had in the fire i would sit sometimes of a night opposite my aunt thinking how i had frightened that time and how i could best make my way a case through the forest of difficulty until i used to fancy that my head was turning quite grey chapter a dissolution of i did not allow my resolution with respect to the to cool it was one of the irons i began to heat immediately and one of the irons i kept hot and at with a perseverance i may honestly admire i bought an approved scheme of the noble art and mystery of which cost me ten and sixpence and plunged into a sea of perplexity that brought me in a few weeks to the of distraction the changes that were rung upon which in such a position meant such a thing and in such another position something else entirely different the wonderful that were played by circles the unaccountable consequences that resulted from marks like flies legs the tremendous effects of a curve in a wrong place not only troubled my waking hours but appeared before me in my sleep when i had my way blindly through these difficulties and had mastered the which was an egyptian temple in itself there then appeared a procession of new horrors called arbitrary characters the most characters i have ever known who insisted for instance that a thing like the beginning of a meant expectation and that a pen and ink sky stood for when i had fixed these wretches in my mind i found that they had driven everything else out of it then beginning again i forgot them while i was picking them up i dropped the other fragments of the system in short it was almost heart breaking it might have been quite heart breaking but for who was the stay and anchor of my tempest driven bark every scratch in the scheme was a oak in the forest of difficulty and i went on cutting them down one after another with such vigour that in three or four months i was in a condition to make an experiment on one
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of our crack in the shall i ever forget david how the crack speaker walked off from me before i began and left my pencil staggering about the paper as if it were in a fit this would not do it was quite clear i was flying too high and should never get on so i resorted to for advice who suggested that he should dictate speeches to me at a pace and with occasional adapted to my weakness very grateful for this friendly aid i accepted the proposal and night after night almost every night for a long time we had a sort of private parliament in street after i came home the doctor s i should like to see such a parliament anywhere else my aunt and mr dick represented the government or the opposition as the case might be and with the assistance of s speaker or a volume of thundered astonishing against them standing by the table with his finger in the page to keep the place and his right arm flourishing above his head as mr mr fox mr mr lord or mr would work himself into the most violent and deliver the most withering of the and corruption of my aunt and mr dick while i used to sit at a little distance with my note book on my knee after him with all my might and main the and of were not to be exceeded by any real he was for any description of policy in the compass of a week and nailed all sorts of colours to every of mast my aunt looking very like an of the would occasionally throw in an interruption or two as hear or no or oh when the text seemed to require it which was always a signal to mr dick a perfect country gentleman to follow with the same cry but mr dick got with such things in the course of his career and was made responsible for such awful consequences that he became uncomfortable in his mind sometimes i believe he actually began to be afraid he really had been doing something tending to th j of the british constitution and the ruin of the david often and often we these until the clock pointed to midnight and the candles were burning down the result of so much good practice was that by and by i began to keep pace with pretty well and should have been quite triumphant if i had had the least idea what my notes were about but as to reading them after i had got them i might as well have copied the chinese on an immense collection of tea or the golden s on all the great red and green bottles in the shops there was nothing for it but to turn back and begin all over again it was very hard but i turned back though with a heavy heart and began laboriously and to over the same tedious ground at a s pace stopping to examine every speck in the way on all sides and making the most desperate efforts to know these characters by sight wherever i met them i was always punctual at the office at the doctor s too and i really did work as the common expression is like a cart horse one day when i went to the as usual i found mr in the doorway looking extremely grave and talking to himself as he was in the habit of complaining of pains in his head he had naturally a short throat and i do seriously believe he himself i was at first alarmed at the idea that he was not quite right in that direction but he soon relieved my uneasiness instead of returning my good morning with his usual he looked at in a distant manner and coldly requested me to accompany him to a certain house which in those days had a door opening into the just within the little in st paul s churchyard i complied in a very uncomfortable state and with a warm shooting all over me as if my apprehension were breaking out into when i allowed liim to go on a little before on account of the of tlie way i observed that he carried his head with a lofty air that was particularly and my mind me that he had found out about my darling if i had not guessed this on the way to the house i could david hardly have failed to know what was the matter when i followed him into an up stairs room and found miss there supported by a back ground of on which were several and two of those extraordinary boxes all corners and for sticking knives and forks in which happily for mankind are now miss gave me her chilly finger nails and sat severely rigid mr shut the door me to a chair and stood on the hearth rug in front of the fire place have the goodness to show mr said mr what you have in your miss i believe it was the old identical steel clasped of my childhood that shut up hke a bite her lips in sympathy with the snap miss opened it opening her mouth a httle at the same time and produced my last letter to with expressions of devoted affection i believe that is your writing mr said mr i was very hot and the voice i heard was very unlike mine when i said it is sir if i am not mistaken said mr as miss brought a parcel of letters out of her tied around with the dearest bit of blue ribbon those are also from your pen mr i took them from her with a most desolate sensation and glancing at such phrases at the top as my ever dearest and own my best and beloved angel my
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blessed one for ever and the like blushed deeply and inclined my head no thank you said mr coldly as i mechanically offered them back to him i will not deprive you of them miss be so good as to proceed that gentle creature after a moment s thoughtful survey of the carpet delivered herself with much dry as follows i must confess to having entertained my suspicions of miss in reference to david for some time i observed miss and david when they first met and the impression made upon me then was not agreeable the of the human heart is such david c you will oblige me ma am interrupted mr by yourself to facts miss cast down her eyes shook her head as if protesting against this interruption and with frowning dignity resumed since i am to confine myself to facts i will state them as as t can perhaps that will be considered an acceptable course of proceeding i have already said sir that i had my suspicions of miss in reference to david for some time i have frequently endeavoured to find decisive of those suspicions but without effect i have therefore to mention them to miss s father looking severely at him knowing how little disposition there usually is in such cases to acknowledge the conscientious discharge of duty mr seemed quite by the gentlemanly of miss s manner and her severity with a little wave of his hand on my return to after the period of absence occasioned by my brother s marriage pursued miss in a voice and on the return of miss from her visit to her friend miss mills i imagined that the manner of miss gave me greater for suspicion than before therefore i watched miss closely dear tender little so unconscious of this s eye still resumed miss i found no proof until last night it appeared to me that miss received too many letters from her friend miss mills but miss mills her friend with her father s full r telling blow at mr it was not for me to interfere if i may not be permitted to allude to the natural of the human heart at least i may i must be permitted so far to refer to confidence mr murmured his assent last evening after tea pursued miss i observed the little and about the room worrying something i said to miss what is that the dog has in his mouth it s paper miss immediately put her hand to her frock gave a sudden cry and ran to the dog i interposed and said my love you must permit me david oil miserable this wretchedness then was your work miss endeavoured said miss to bribe me with kisses work boxes and small articles of that of course i pass over the little dog retreated under the sofa on my approaching him and was with great difficulty by the fire irons even when he still kept the letter in his mouth and on my endeavouring to take it from him at the imminent risk of being bitten he kept it between his teeth so as to suffer himself to be held suspended in the air by means of the document at length i obtained possession of it after it i miss with having many such letters in her possession and ultimately obtained from her the packet which is now in david s hand here she ceased and snapping her again and shutting her mouth looked as if she might be broken but could never be bent you have heard miss said mr turning to me i beg to ask mr if you have anything to say in reply the picture i had before me of the beautiful little treasure of my heart sobbing and crying all night of her being alone frightened and wretched then of her having so begged and prayed that stony hearted woman to forgive her of her having vainly offered her those kisses work boxes and of her being in such grievous distress and all for me very much the httle dignity i had been able to muster i am aid i was in a tremulous state for a minute or so though i did my best to it there is nothing i can say sir i returned except that all the blame is mine miss if you please said her father was induced and persuaded by me i went on that colder to consent to this concealment and i bitterly regret it you are very much to blame sir said mr walking to and fro upon the hearth rug and what he said with his whole body instead of his head on account of the of his david and you have done a stealthy and action mr when i take a gentleman to my house no matter whether he is nineteen twenty nine or ninety i take him there in a spirit of confidence if he my confidence he a action mr i feel it sir i assure you i returned but i never thought so before sincerely honestly indeed mr i never thought so before i love miss to that extent nonsense said mr pray don t tell me to my that you love my daughter mr could i defend my conduct if i did not sir i returned with all humility can you defend your conduct if you do sir said mr stopping short upon the hearth rug have you considered your years and my daughter s years mr you considered what it is to the confidence that should between my daughter and myself have you considered my daughter s station in life the projects i may contemplate for her advancement the intentions i may have with reference to her have you considered anything mr very little sir i am afraid i answered speaking to him as
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respectfully and sorrowfully as i felt but pray believe me i have considered my own worldly position when i explained it you w e were already engaged i beg said mr more hke punch than i had ever seen him as he struck one hand upon the other i could not help noticing that even in my despair that you will not talk to me of engagements mr the otherwise miss laughed contemptuously in one short syllable when i explained my altered position to you sir i began again a new form of expression for what was so to him this concealment into which i am so unhappy as to have led miss had begun since i have been in that altered position i have strained every nerve i have exerted every energy to improve it i am sure i shall improve it in time will you grant me time any length of time we are both so young sir david you are right interrupted mr nodding his head a great many times and frowning very much you are both very young it s all nonsense let there be an end of the nonsense take away those letters and throw them in the fire give me miss s letters to throw in the fire and although our future intercourse must you are aware be to the here we will agree to make no further mention of the past come mr you don t want sense and this is the sensible course no i couldn t think of agreeing to it i was very sorry but there was a higher consideration than sense love was above all earthly considerations and i loved to and loved me i didn t exactly say so i softened it down as much as i could but i implied it and i was resolute upon it i don t think i made myself very ridiculous but i know i was resolute very well mr said mr i must try my influence with my daughter miss by an expressive sound a long drawn which was neither a sigh nor a moan but was like both gave it as her opinion that he should have done this at first i must try said mr confirmed by this support my influence with my daughter do you decline to take those letters mr for i had laid them on the table yes i told him i hoped he would not think it wrong but i couldn t possibly take them from miss nor from me said mr no i replied with the respect nor from him very well said mr a silence succeeding i was whether to go or stay at length i was moving quietly towards the door with the intention of saying that perhaps i should consult his feelings best by withdrawing when he said with his hands in his coat pockets into which it was as much as he could do to get them and with what i should call upon the whole a decidedly pious air you are probably aware mr that i am not altogether destitute of worldly possessions and that my daughter is my nearest and dearest relative i hurriedly made him a reply to the effect that i hoped the david into which i had been betrayed by the desperate nature of my love did not induce him to think me too don t allude to the matter in that light said mr it would be better for yourself and all of us if you were mr i mean if you were more discreet and less influenced by all this youthful nonsense no i merely say with quite another view you are probably aware i have some property to be to my child i certainly supposed so and you can hardly think said mr having experience of what we see in the here every day of the various unaccountable and proceedings of men in respect of their arrangements of all subjects the one on which perhaps the strangest revelations of human are to be met with but that mine are made i inclined my head in acquiescence i should not allow said mr with an evident increase of pious sentiment and slowly shaking his head as he poised himself upon his toes and heels alternately my suitable pro for my child to be influenced by a piece of youthful folly like the present it is mere folly mere nonsense in a little while it will weigh lighter than any feather but i might i might if this silly business were not completely altogether be induced in some anxious moment to guard her from and surround her with against the consequences of any foolish step in the way of marriage now mr i hope you will not render it necessary for me to open even for a quarter of an hour that closed page in the book of life and even for a quarter of an hour grave affairs long since composed there was a serenity a tranquillity a calm sunset air about him which quite affected me he was so peaceful and resigned clearly had his affairs in such perfect train and so wound up that he was a man to feel touched in the contemplation of i really think i saw tears rise to his eyes from the depth of his own of all this but what could i do i could not deny and my own heart when he told me i had better take a week to consider of what david he had said how could i say i wouldn t take a week yet how could i fa to know that no amount of weeks could influence such love as mine in the meantime confer with miss or with any person with any knowledge of life said mr his with both hands take a week mr i submitted
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and with a countenance as expressive as i was able to make it of dejected and despairing constancy came out of the room miss s heavy eyebrows followed me to the door i say her eyebrows rather than her eyes because they were much more important in her face and she looked so exactly as she used to look at about that hour of the morning in our parlour at that i could have that i had been breaking down in my lessons again and that the dead weight on my mind was that horrible old book with oval shaped to my youthful fancy like the glasses out of spectacles when i got to the office and shutting out old and the rest of them with my hands sat at my desk in my own particular nook thinking of this earthquake that had taken place so unexpectedly and in the bitterness of my spirit cursing i fell into such a state of torment about that i wonder i did not take up my hat and rush to the idea of their her and making her cry and my not being there to comfort her was so that it impelled me to write a wild letter to mr him not to visit upon her the consequences of my awful destiny i implored him to spare her gentle nature not to crush a flower and addressed him generally to the best of my remembrance as if instead of being her father he had been an or the of this letter i sealed and laid upon his desk before he returned and when he came in i saw him through the half opened door of his room take it up and read it he said about it all the but before he went away in the afternoon he called me in and told me that i need not make myself at all uneasy about his daughter s happiness he had assured her he said that it was all nonsense and had nothing more to say to her he he was an indulgent father as indeed he was and i might spare myself any solicitude on her account david you may make it necessary if you are foolish and obstinate mr he observed for me to send my daughter abroad again for a term but i have a better opinion of you i hope you will be wiser than that in a few days as to miss for i had alluded to her in the letter i respect that lady s vigilance and feel obliged to her but she has strict charge to avoid the subject all i desire mr is that it should be forgotten all you have got to do mr is to forget it all in the note i wrote to miss mills i bitterly quoted this sentiment all i had to do i said with gloomy sarcasm was to forget that was all and what was that i entreated miss mills to see me that evening if it could not be done with mr mills s sanction and i a interview in the back kitchen where the was i informed her that my reason was tottering on its throne and only she miss mills could prevent its being i signed myself hers and i couldn t help feeling when i read this composition over before sending it by a porter that it was something in the style of mr however i sent it at night i repaired to miss mills s street and walked up and down until i was stealthily fetched in by miss mills s maid and taken the area way to the back kitchen i have since been reason to believe that there was nothing on earth to prevent my going in at the front door and being shown up into the drawing room except miss mills s love of the romantic and mysterious in the back kitchen i as became me i went there i suppose to make a fool of myself and i am quite sure i did it miss mills had received a hasty note from telling her that all was discovered and saying oh pray come to me do do but miss mills the of her presence to the higher s had not yet gone and we were all in the desert of miss mills had a wonderful flow of words and liked to pour them out i could not help feeling though she mingled her tears with mine that she had a dreadful luxury in our she them as i may say and made the most of them a deep gulf she observed had opened between and me and love could only david span it with its rainbow love must suffer in this stern world it ever had been so it ever would be so no matter miss mills remarked hearts confined by would burst at last and then love was this was small consolation but miss mills wouldn t encourage hopes she made me much more wretched than i was before and i felt and told her with the deepest gratitude that she was indeed a friend we resolved that she should go to the first in the and find some means of her either by looks or ds of my devotion and misery we parted overwhelmed with grief and i think miss mills enjoyed herself completely confided all to my aunt when i got home and in spite of all she could say to me went to bed despairing i got up despairing and went out despairing it was saturday morning and i went straight to the i was surprised when i came within sight of our office door to see the ticket standing outside talking together and some half dozen gazing at the windows which were shut up i quickened my pace and passing among them wondering at their looks went hurried y in
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the clerks were there but nobody was doing anything old for the first time in his life i should think was sitting on somebody else s stool and had not hung up his hat this is a dreadful calamity mr said he as i entered what is i exclaimed what s the matter don t you know cried and all the rest of them coming round me no said i looking from face to face mr said what about him dead i thought it was the office and not i as one of the clerks caught hold of me they sat me down in a chair my and brought me some water i have no idea whether thia took any time david dead said i lie dined in town yesterday and drove down in the by himself said having sent his own groom home by the coach as he sometimes did you know well r the went home without him the horses stopped at the stable gate the man went out with a lantern nobody in the had they run away they were not hot said putting on his glasses no i understand than they would have been going down at the usual pace the reins were broken but they had been ng on the ground the house was roused up directly and three of them went out along the road they found him a mile off more than a mile off mr interposed a junior was it i believe you are right said more than a mile off not far from the church lying partly on the road side and partly on the path upon his face whether he fell out in a fit or got out feeling ill before the fit came on or even whether he was quite dead then though there is no doubt he was quite insensible no one appears to know if he breathed certainly he never spoke medical assistance was got as soon as possible but it was quite useless i cannot describe the state of mind into which i was thrown by this intelligence the shock of such an event happening so suddenly and happening to one with whom i had been in any respect at the appalling in the room he had occupied so lately where his chair and table seemed to wait for him and his handwriting of yesterday was like a ghost the impossibility of separating him from the place and feeling when the door opened as if he might come in the lazy hush and rest there was in the office and the relish with which our people talked about it and other people came in and out all day and themselves with the subject this is easily intelligible to any one what i cannot describe is how in the recesses of my own heart i had a lurking jealousy even of death how i felt as if its might would push me from my ground in s thoughts how i was g david in a way i have no words for envious of her grief how it made me restless to think of her weeping to others or being consoled by others how i had a grasping wish to shut out everybody from her but myself and to be all in all to her at that time of all times in the trouble of this state of mind not exclusively my own i hope but known to others i went down to that night and finding from one of the servants when i made my inquiries at the door that miss mills was there got my aunt to direct a letter to her which i wrote i the death of mr most sincerely and shed tears in doing so i entreated her to tell if were in a state to hear it that he had spoken to me with the utmost kindness and consideration and had coupled nothing but tenderness not a single or word with her name i know i did this to have my name brought before her but i tried to believe it was an act of justice to his memory perhaps i did believe it my aunt received a few lines next day in reply addressed outside to her within to me was overcome by grief and when her friend had asked her should she send her love to me had only cried as she was always crying oh dear papa oh poor papa but she had not said no and that i made the most of mr who had been at since the occurrence came to the office a few days afterwards he and were together for some few moments and then looked out at the door and beckoned me in oh said mr mr and myself mr are about to examine the desk the drawers and other such of the deceased with the view of up his private papers and searching for a will there is no trace of any elsewhere it may be as well for you to assist us if you please i had been in agony to obtain some knowledge of the circumstances in which my would be placed as in whose and forth and this was something towards it we began the search at once mr the drawers and and we all taking out the papers the office papers we placed on one side and the private papers which were not numerous on the other we david were very grave and when we came to a stray seal or pencil case or ring or any little article of that kind which we associated per with him we spoke very low we had sealed up several and were still going on and quietly when mr said to us applying exactly the same words to his late partner as his late partner had applied to
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him mr was very difficult to move from the beaten track you know what he was i am disposed to think he had made no will oh i know he had said i they both stopped and looked at me on the very day when i last saw him said i he told me that he had and that his affairs were long since settled mr and old shook their heads with one accord that looks said very said mr surely you don t doubt i began my good mr said laying his hand upon my arm and shutting up both his eyes as he shook his head if you had been in the as long as i have you would know that there is no subject on which men are so inconsistent and so little to be trusted why bless my soul he made that remark i replied persistently i should call that almost final observed my opinion is no will it appeared a wonderful thing to me but it turned out that there was no will he had never so much as thought of making one so far as his papers afforded any evidence for there was no kind of hint sketch or of any intention whatever what was scarcely less astonishing to me wa s that his affairs were in a most disordered state it was extremely difficult i heard to make out what he owed or what he had paid cr of what he died possessed it was considered likely that for he could have had no clear opinion on these subjects himself by little and little it came out that in the competition on all points of appearance and then running high in the he had spent more david than his professional income which was not a very large one and had reduced his private means if they ever had been great which was exceedingly doubtful to a very low ebb indeed there was a sale of the furniture and lease at and told me little thinking how interested i was in the story that paying all the just debts of the deceased and his share of bad and doubtful debts due to the firm he wouldn t give a thousand pounds for all the remaining this was at the of about six weeks i had suffered all the time and i really must have laid violent hands upon myself when miss mills still reported to me that my broken hearted httle would say nothing when i was mentioned but oh poor papa oh dear papa that she had no other relations than two maiden sisters of mr who lived at and who had not held any other than chance communication with their brother for many years not that they had ever miss mills informed me but that having been on the occasion of s invited to tea when they considered themselves privileged to be invited to dinner they had expressed their opinion in writing that it was better for the happiness of all parties that they should stay away since which they had gone their road and their brother had gone his these two ladies now emerged from their retirement and proposed to take to live at i clinging to them both and weeping exclaimed o yes please take mills and me and to so they went very soon after the funeral how i found time to haunt i am sure i don t know but i contrived by some means or other to about the neighbourhood pretty often miss mills for the more exact discharge of the duties of friendship kept a journal and she used to meet me sometimes on the common and read it or if she had no time to do that lend it to me how i up the of which i a monday my sweet d still much depressed headache called attention to j as being beautifully sleek d j associations thus awakened opened of sorrow of grief admitted are tears the of the heart j m david g tuesday d weak and nervous beautiful in do we not remark this in moon likewise j m d j m and j took in carriage j looking out of window and barking violently at occasioned smile to features of d of such slight links is chain of life composed j m d comparatively cheerful sang to her as congenial melody evening bells effect not soothing but reverse d affected found sobbing afterwards in own room quoted verses respecting self and young also referred to patience on monument why on monument j m thursday d certainly improved better night slight tinge of cheek resolved to mention name of d c introduced same cautiously in course of d immediately overcome oh dear dear oh i have been a naughty and child soothed and drew ideal picture of d on verge of tomb d again o oh what shall i do what shall i do oh take me somewhere much alarmed fainting of d and glass of water from public house poetical sign on door post human hfe alas j m friday day of incident man appears in kitchen blue bag for lady s boots left out to heel cook replies no such orders man point cook to inquire leaving man alone with j on cook s return man still point but ultimately goes j missing d distracted information sent to police man to be identified by broad nose and legs like of bridge search made in every direction no j ing and renewed reference to young appropriate but towards evening strange boy calls brought into parlour broad nose but no says he wants a pound and knows a dog to explain further though pressed pound being produced by d takes cook to little house where j alone tied up to leg of table joy of d who dances round j while he his supper by this y change
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mention d c s d afresh cries oh don t don t don t it is so wicked to think of anything but pool david papa embraces j and sobs herself to sleep must not d c confide himself to the broad of time j m miss mills and her journal were my sole consolation at this period to see her who had seen but a little while before to trace the letter of s name through her sympathetic pages to be made more and more miserable by her were my only comforts i felt as if i had been in a palace of cards which had tumbled down leaving only miss mills and me among the ruins as if some grim had drawn a magic circle round the innocent goddess of my heart which nothing indeed but those same strong capable of carrying so many people over so much would enable me to enter chapter and my aunt beginning i imagine to be made seriously uncomfortable by my prolonged made a pretence of being anxious that i should go to to see that all was working well at the cottage which was let and to conclude an agreement with the same tenant for a longer term of occupation was into the service of mrs strong where i saw her every day she had been on leaving whether or no to give the finishing touch to that of mankind in which she had been educated by marrying a pilot but she decided against that venture not so much for the sake of principle i believe as because she happened not to like him although it required an effort to leave miss mills i fell rather into my aunt s pretence as a means of me to pass a few tranquil hours with x i consulted the good doctor relative to an absence of three days and the doctor wishing me to take that he wished me to take more but my energy could not bear that i made up my mind to go as to the i had no great occasion to be my duties in that quarter to say the truth we were getting in no very good among the tip top and were down to but a doubtful position the business had been indifferent under mr before mr s time and although it had been quickened by the of new blood and by the display which mr made still it was not established on a sufficiently strong basis to bear without being shaken such a blow as the sudden loss of its active manager it fell off very much mr notwithstanding his reputation in the was an able sort of man whose reputation out of doors not calculated to it up i was turned oyer to him now and when p q i david i saw him take his snuff and let the business go i regretted my aunt s thousand pounds more than ever but this was not the worst of it there were a number of on and about the who without being themselves in common form business and got it done by real who lent their names in consideration of a share in the spoil and there were a good many of these too as our now wanted business on any terms we joined this noble band and threw out to the on and to bring their business to us marriage and small were what we all looked for and what paid us best and the competition for these ran very high indeed and s were planted in all the avenues of entrance to the with instructions to do their utmost to cut off all persons in mourning and all gentlemen with anything in their appearance and them to the in which their respective were interested which instructions were so well observed that i myself before i was known by sight was twice into the premises of our principal opponent the conflicting interests of these gentlemen being of a nature to their feelings personal took place and the was even by our principal who had formerly been in the wine trade and afterwards in the sworn line walking about for some days with a black eye any one of these used to think nothing of politely assisting an old lady in black out of a vehicle killing any whom she inquired for representing his employer as the lawful successor and representative of that and bearing the old lady off sometimes greatly affected to his employer s office many were brought to me in this way as to marriage the competition rose to such a pitch that a shy gentleman in want of one had to do but submit himself to the or be fought for and become the prey of the strongest one of our clerks who was an used in the height of this contest to sit with his hat on that he might be ready to rush out and swear before a any victim who was brought in the system of continues i believe to this day the last time i was in the a civil able person in a white apron david c r p e r f e l d o o out upon me from a doorway and whispering the word in my ear was with great difficulty prevented from taking me up in his arms and lifting me into a s from this let me proceed to i found everything in a satisfactory state at the cottage and was enabled to gratify my aunt exceedingly by that the tenant inherited her and incessant war against having settled the little business i had to there and slept there one night i walked on to early in the morning it was now winter again and the fresh cold windy day and the sweeping down land brightened up my hopes a little coming into i
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through the old streets with a sober pleasure that my spirits and my heart there were the old signs the old names over the shops the old people serving in them it appeared so long since i had been a there that i wondered the place was so little changed until i reflected how little i was changed myself strange to say that quiet influence which was inseparable in my mind from seemed to even the city where she dwelt the venerable cathedral towers and the old and whose airy voices made them more retired than perfect silence would have done the battered once stuck full with statues long thrown down and away like the who had gazed upon them the still where the growth of centuries crept over ends and ruined walls the ancient houses the pastoral landscape of field orchard and garden everywhere on everything i felt the same air the same calm thoughtful softening spirit arrived at mr s house i found in the little lower room on the ground floor where had been of old accustomed to sit mr his pen with great he was dressed in a legal looking suit of black and l and large in that small office mr was glad to see me but a little confused too he would have conducted me immediately into the presence t a i but i declined i know the house of you recollect i and will find v iv ui r how do von like tlie law mr david my dear he replied to a man possessed of the higher imaginative powers the objection to legal studies is the amount of detail which they involve even in our professional correspondence said mr glancing at some letters he was writing the mind is not at liberty to to any exalted form of expression still it is a great pursuit a great pursuit he then told me that he had become the tenant of s old house and that mrs w ould be delighted to receive me once more under her own roof it is humble said mr to quote a favourite expression of my friend but it may prove the stepping stone to more ambitious accommodation i asked him whether he liad reason so far to be satisfied with his friend s treatment of him he got up to ascertain if the door were close shut before he replied in a lower voice my dear a man who labors under the pressure of pecuniary is with the of at a disadvantage that disadvantage is not diminished when that pressure the drawing of before those are strictly due and all can say is that my friend has responded to appeals to which i need not more particularly refer in a manner calculated to equally to the honour of his head and of his heart i should not have supposed him to be very free with his money either i observed pardon me said mr with an air of speak of my as i have experience i am glad your experience is so favourable t returned you are very obliging my dear said mr and a tune do you see much of mr i asked to change the subject not much said mr mr is i dare say a man of very excellent intentions but he is in short he is i am afraid his partner seeks to make him so said i my dear field returned mr after some on his stool allow me to oft er a remark i am here iu david b capacity of confidence i am here in a position of trust the discussion of some topics even with mrs herself so the partner of my various and a woman of a remarkable of intellect is i am led to consider with the functions now on me i would therefore take the liberty of suggesting that in our friendly intercourse which i trust will never be disturbed i we draw a on one side of this said mr representing it on the desk with the office ruler is the whole range of the human intellect with a trifling exception on the other is that exception that is to say the affairs of messrs and with all belonging and i trust i gi e no offence to the companion of my youth in this proposition to his cooler judgment though saw an uneasy change in mr which sat tightly on him as if his new duties were a i felt i had no right to be offended my telling him so appeared to relieve him and he shook hands with me i am charmed said mr let me assure you with miss she is a very superior young lady of very remarkable attractions graces and virtues upon my honour said mr kissing his hand and bowing with his air i do homage to miss hem i am glad of that at least said i if you had not assured us my dear on the occasion of that agreeable afternoon we had the happiness of passing with you that d was your favorite letter said mr i should unquestionably have supposed that a had been so we have all some experience of a feeling that comes over us occasionally of what we are saying and doing having been said and done before in a remote time of our having been surrounded ages ago by the same faces objects and circumstances of our knowing perfectly what will be said next as if we suddenly remembered it i never had this mysterious impression more strongly in my life than before he uttered those words i took my leave of mr for the time charging him with my best to all at home as i left him his and his pen and rolling his head in his stock to get it into david easier writing order i clearly perceived that
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there was something interposed between him and me since he had come into his new functions which prevented our getting at each other as we used to do and quite altered the character of our intercourse there was no one in the quaint old drawing room though it presented tokens of mrs s i looked into the room still belonging to and saw her sitting by the fire at a pretty old fashioned desk she had writing my darkening the light made her look up what a pleasure to be the cause of that bright change in her attentive face and the object of that sweet regard and welcome ah said i when we were sitting together side by side i have missed you so much lately indeed she replied again and so soon v shook my head i don t know how it is i seem to want some faculty of mind that i ought to have you were so much in the habit of thinking for me in the happy old days here and i came so naturally to you for counsel and support that i really think i have missed acquiring it and what is it said cheerfully i don t know what to call it i replied i think i am earnest and i am sure of it said and patient i with a little hesitation yes returned laughing pretty well and yet said i i got so miserable and worried and am so unsteady and in my power of assuring myself that i know i must want shall i call it of some kind call it so if you will said well i returned see here you come to london i rely on you and i have an object and a course at once i ami driven out of it i come here and in a moment i feel an altered person the circumstances that distressed me are not changed since i came into this room but an influence comes over me in that short interval that me oh how much for the better is it what is your secret david her head was bent down looking at the fire it s the old story said i don t laugh when i say it was always the same in little things as it is in greater ones my old troubles were nonsense and now they are serious but whenever i have gone away from my adopted sister looked up with such a heavenly face and gave me her hand which i kissed whenever i have not had you to advise and approve in the i have seemed to a o wild and to into all sorts of difficulty when i have come to you at last as i have always done i have come to peace and happiness i come home now like a tired traveller and find such a blessed sense of rest i felt so deeply what said it affected me so sincerely that my voice failed and i covered my face with my hand and broke into tears i write the truth whatever and there were within me as there are within so many of us whatever might have been so different and so much better whatever i had done in which i had wandered away from the voice of my own heart i knew nothing of i only knew that i was fervently in earnest when i felt the rest and peace of having near me in her placid manner with her beaming eyes with her tender voice and with that sweet composure which had long ago made the house that held her quite a sacred place to me she soon won me from this weakness and led me on to tell all that had happened since our last meeting and there is not another word to tell said i when i had made an end of my confidence now my reliance is on you but it must not be on me returned with a pleasant smile it must be on some one else on said i assuredly why i have not mentioned said i a little embarrassed that l is rather difficult to would not for the world say to rely up n because sh is the soul of purity and truth but rather difficult to i hardly know how to express it really she is a little thing and easily disturbed and frightened some time david ago before her father s death when i thought it right to mention to her but i ll tell you if you will bear with me how it was accordingly i told about my declaration of poverty about the book the housekeeping accounts and all the rest of it oh she remonstrated with a smile just your old headlong way you might have been in earnest in striving to get on in the world without being so very sudden with a timid loving inexperienced girl poor i never heard such sweet kindness expressed in a voice as she expressed in making this reply it was as if i had seen her admiring and tenderly embracing and me by her considerate protection for my hot haste in fluttering that little heart it was as if i had seen in all her fascinating caressing and thanking her and appealing against me and loving me with all her childish innocence felt so grateful to and admired her so i saw those two together in a bright perspective such well associated friends each the other so much what ought i to do then i inquired after looking at the fire a little while what would it be right to do i think said that the honourable course to take w ould be to write to those two ladies don t you think that any secret course is an unworthy one yes if you think so said i i
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am poorly qualified to judge of such matters replied with a modest hesitation but i certainly feel in short feel that your being secret and is not being like yourself like myself in the too high opinion you have of me i am afraid said i like yourself in the of your nature she returned and therefore i would write to those two ladies i would relate as plainly and as openly as possible all that has taken place and i would ask their permission to visit sometimes at their house considering that you are young and striving for a place in life think it would be well to say that you would readily abide by any conditions they might impose upon you i would entreat them not to dismiss your request without a reference to and to discuss david c p p e ii f t v l d it with her when they should the time suitable i would not be too vehement said gently or propose too much would trust to my fidelity and perseverance and to but if they were to again by speaking to her said i and if were to cry and say nothing about me is that likely inquired with the same sweet consideration in her face god bless her she is as easily scared as a bird said i it might be or if the two miss elderly ladies of that sort are odd characters sometimes should not be likely persons to address in that way i don t think returned raising her soft eyes to mine i would consider that perhaps it would be better only to consider whether it is right to do this and if it is to do it i had no longer any doubt on the subject with a lightened heart though with a profound sense of the importance of my task i devoted the whole afternoon to the composition of the di aft of this letter for which great her desk to me but first i went down stairs to see mr and i found in possession of a new plaster smelling built out in the garden looking mean in the midst of a quantity of books and papers he received me in his usual way and pretended not to have heard of my arrival from mr a pretence i took the liberty of he accompanied me into mr s room which was the shadow of its former self having been of a variety of for the accommodation of the new partner and stood before the fire warming his back and his chin with his bony hand while mr and i exchanged greetings you stay with us while you remain in said mr not without a glance at for his approval is there room for me said i i am sure master i should say but the other comes so natural said i would turn out of your old room with pleasure if it would be agreeable no no said mr why should you be there s another room there s another room david oh but you know returned with a gi in i should really be to cut the matter short i said i would have the other room or none at all so it was settled that i should have the other room and taking my leave of the firm until dinner i went up stairs again i had to have no other companion than but mrs had asked permission to bring herself and her knitting near the fire in that room on pretence of its having an aspect more favourable for her as the wind then was than the drawing room or dining parlour though i could almost have consigned her to the of the wind on the of the cathedral without remorse i made a virtue of necessity and gave her a friendly salutation i m thankful to you sir said mrs in acknowledgment of my inquiries concerning her health but i m only pretty well i haven t much to boast of if i could see my well settled in life i couldn t expect much more i think how do you think my looking sir i thought him looking as as ever and i replied that i saw no change in him oh don t you think he s changed said mrs there i must beg leave to differ from you don t you see a in him not more than usual i replied you though said mrs but you don t take notice of him with a mother s eye his mother s eye was an evil eye to the rest of the world i thought as it met mine affectionate to him and i believe she and lier son were devoted to one another it passed me and went on to don t you see a wasting and a wearing in him miss inquired mrs no said quietly pursuing the work on which she waa engaged you are too about him he is very well mrs w th a prodigious resumed her knitting she never left off or left us for a moment i had arrived early in the day and we had still three or four hours before dinner but she david at there her knitting needles as as an might have poured out its sands she sat on one side of the fire i sat at the desk in front of it a little beyond me on the other side sat slowly pondering over my letter i up my eyes and meeting the thoughtful face of saw it clear and beam encouragement upon me with its own expression i was conscious presently of the evil eye passing me and going on to her and coming back to me again and dropping upon the knitting what the knitting was i don t know not being learned in that art but
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it looked like a net and as she worked away with those chinese of knitting needles she showed in the like an ill looking as yet by the radiant goodness opposite but getting ready for a cast of her net by and by at dinner she maintained her watch with the same eyes after dinner her son took his turn and when mr himself and i were left alone together at me and until i could hardly bear it in the drawing room there was the mother knitting and watching again all the time that sang and played the mother sat at the piano once she asked for a particular ballad which she said her who was yawning in a great chair on and at intervals she looked round at him and reported to that he was in witli tne music but she hardly ever spoke i question if she ever did without making some mention of him it was evident to me that this was the duty ned to her this lasted until to have seen the mother and son like two great hanging over the whole house and darkening it with their ugly forms made me so uncomfortable that i would rather have remained down stairs knitting and all than gone to bed i hardly got any sleep next day the knitting and watching began again and lasted all di y i had not an opportunity of speaking to for ten minutes i could barely show her my letter i proposed to her to walk out with me but mrs repeatedly complaining that she was worse remained within to bear her company towards the twilight i went out by myself musing on what ought david to do and whether i was justified in from any longer what keep had told me in london for that began to trouble me again very much i had not walked out far enough to be quite clear of the town upon the road where there was a good path when i was hailed through the dusk by somebody behind me the figure and the scanty great coat were not to be mistaken i stopped and came up well said i how fast you walk said he my legs are pretty long but you ve given em quite a job where are you going v said i i am coming with you master if you ll allow me the pleasure of a walk with an old acquaintance saying this with a jerk of his body which might have been either or he fell into step beside me said i as as i could after a silence master said to tell you the truth at which you will not be offended i came out to walk alone because i have had so much company he looked at me sideways and said with his hardest grin you mean mother why yes i do said i ah but you know we re so very he returned and having such a knowledge of our own we must really take care that we re not pushed to the wall by them as isn t humble all are fair in love sir raising his great hands until they touched his chin he rubbed them softly and softly chuckled looking as hke a i thought as anything human could look you see he said still himself in that unpleasant way and shaking his head at me you re quite a dangerous rival master you always was you know do you set a watch upon miss and make her home do home because of me said i oh master those are very words he replied david g put my meaning into any words you like said i you know what it is as as i do oh no you must put it into words he said oh really i i couldn t myself do you suppose said i myself to be very temperate and quiet with on account of that i regard miss otherwise than as a very dear sister well master he replied you perceive i am not bound to answer that question you may not you know but then you see you may anything to equal the low cunning of his and of his eyes without the ghost of an i never saw come then said i for the sake of miss my he exclaimed with a sickly of himself would you be so good as call her master for the sake of heaven bless her thank you for that blessing master he interposed i will tell you what i should under any other circumstances as boon hav e thought of telling to jack to who sir v said stretching out his neck and his ear with his hand to the i returned the most unlikely person i could think of h his own face had the allusion quite as a natural i am engaged to another young lady i hope that contents you upon your soul said i was about indignantly to give my assertion the confirmation he required when he caught hold of my hand and gave it a squeeze oh master he said if you had only had the condescension to return my confidence when i poured out the fulness of my art the night i put you so out of the way by sleeping before your sitting room fire i never should have doubted you as it is i m sure i ll take off mother directly and only too i know you ll excuse the precautions of affection won t you what a pity co that you didn t condescend to return my confidence i m sure i gave you every opportunity but you never david have condescended to me as much as i have wished i w you have never me as i have liked you au this time he was my hand with his damp fingers while
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i made every i decently could to get it away but i was quite unsuccessful he drew it under the sleeve of his coloured and i walked on almost upon arm in arm with him shall we turn said by and by me face about towards the town on which the early moon was now shining the distant windows before we leave the subject you ought to understand said i breaking a pretty long silence that i believe to be as far above you and as far removed from all your aspirations as that moon herself peaceful ain t she said very now confess master that you hav n t liked me quite as i have liked you all along you ve thought me too now i shouldn t wonder i am not fond of professions of humility i returned or professions of anything else there now said looking and lead coloured in the moonlight didn t i know it but how little you think of the of a person in my station master father and me was both brought up at a foundation school for boys and mother she was likewise brought up at a public sort of charitable establishment they taught us all a deal of not much else that i know of from morning to we was to be to this person and to that and to pull off our caps here and to make bows there and always to know our place and ourselves before our and we had such a lot of father got the by being so did i father got made a by being he had the character among the of being such a well behaved man that they were determined to bring him in be says father and you ll get on it was what was always being into you and me at school it s what goes down best be says father and you ll do and really it ain t done bad it was the first time it had e er occurred to me that this david able cant of false humility might have originated out of the i had seen the harvest but had never thought of the seed when i was quite a young boy said i got to know what did and i took to it i ate pie with an appetite i stopped at the point of my learning and says i hold hard when you offered to teach me latin knew better people hke to be above you says father keep yourself down i am very to the present moment master but i ve got a little power and he said all this i knew as i saw his face in the moonlight that i might understand he was resolved to himself by using his power i had never doubted his meanness his craft and but i fully comprehended now for the first time what a base and spirit must have been by this early and this long his account of himself was so far attended with an result that it led to his withdrawing his hand in order that he might have another of himself under the chin once apart from him i was determined to keep apart and we walked back side by side saying very little more by the way whether his spirits were elevated by the communication i had made to him or by his having indulged in this i don t know but they were raised by some influence he talked more at dinner than was usual with him asked his mother oflf duty from the moment of our re entering the house whether he was not growing too old for a bachelor and once looked at so that i would have given all i had for leave to knock him down when we three were left alone after dinner he got into a more adventurous state he had taken little or no wine and i presume it was the mere insolence of triumph that was upon him flushed perhaps by the temptation my presence furnished to it s exhibition i had observed yesterday that he tried to mr to drink and the look which had given me as she went out had limited myself to one glass and then proposed that we should follow her i would have done so again to day but was too quick for me david we seldom see our present visitor sir he said addressing mr sitting such a contrast to him at the end of the table and i should propose to give him welcome in another glass or of wine if you have no objections mr your and i was obliged to make a show of taking the hand he stretched across to me and then with very different emotions i took the land of the broken gentleman his partner come fellow partner said if i may take the liberty now suppose you give us something or another appropriate to i pass over mr s proposing my aunt his proposing mr dick his proposing doctors his proposing his drinking everything twice his consciousness of his own weakness the ineffectual effort that he made against it the struggle between his shame in s and his desire to him the manifest exultation with which twisted and turned and held him up before me it made me sick at heart to see and my hand from writing it come fellow partner said at last ll give you another one and i ask for seeing i intend to make it the of her sex her father had his empty glass in his hand i saw him set it down look at the picture she w us so like put his hand to his forehead and shrink back in his elbow chair i m an individual to give you her proceeded but i admire her no physical pain that her father s
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grey head could have borne i think could have been more terrible to me than the mental endurance i saw compressed now within both his hands said either not regarding him or not knowing what the nature of his was is i am safe to say the of her sex may i speak out among friends to be her father is a proud distinction but to be her spare me from ever again hearing such a cry as that with which her father rose up from the table david what s the matter said turning of a deadly colour you are not gone mad after all mr i hope if i say i ve an ambition to make your my i have as good a right to it as another man i have a better right to it than any other man i had my arms round mr imploring him by everything that i could think of of all by his love for to calm himself a httle he was mad for the moment tearing out his hair beating his head trying to force me from him and to force himself from me not answering a word not looking at or seeing any one blindly striving for he knew not what his face all staring and distorted a frightful spectacle i him but in the most impassioned manner riot to abandon himself to this but to hear me i him to think of to connect me with to recollect how and i had grown up together how i honoured her and loved her how she was his pride and joy i tried to bring her idea before him in any form i even reproached him with not having firmness to spare her the knowledge of such a scene as this i may have effected something or his may have spent itself but by degrees he struggled less and began to look at me strangely at first then with recognition in his eyes at length he said i know my darling child and you i know but look at him he pointed to pale and in a corner evidently very much out in his calculations and taken by surprise look at my he replied before him i have step by step abandoned name and reputation peace and quiet house and home i have kept your name and reputation for you and your peace and quiet and your house and home too said with a sulky hurried defeated air of compromise don t be foolish mr if i have gone a little beyond what you were prepared for i can go back i suppose there s no harm done i looked for single motives in every one said mr and i was satisfied i had bound him to me by motives of interest see what he is oh see what he is david you had better stop if you can cried with his long fore finger pointing towards he ll say something presently mind you he ll be sorry to have said afterwards and you ll be sorry to have heard i say anything cried mr with a desperate air why should i not be in all the world s power if i am in yours mind i tell you said continuing to warn me if you don t stop his mouth you re not his friend why shouldn t you be in all the world s power mr because you have got a daughter you and me know what we know don t we let sleeping dogs lie who wants to rouse em i don t can t you see i am as as i can be i tell you if i ve gone too far i m sorry what would you have sir oh exclaimed mr wringing his hands what i have come down to be since i first saw you in this house i was on my downward way then but the dreary dreary road i have traversed since weak indulgence has ruined me indulgence in remembrance and indulgence in forgetful ness my natural grief for my child s mother turned to disease my natural love for my child turned to disease i have everything i touched i have brought misery on what i dearly love i know you know i thought it possible that i could truly love one creature in the world and not love the rest i thought it possible that i could truly n fur one creature gone out of the world and not have some part in the grief of all who mourned thus the lessons of my hfe have been i have on my morbid coward heart and it has on me sordid in my grief sordid in my love sordid in my miserable escape from the darker side of both oh see the ruin i am and hate me me he dropped into a chair and weakly sobbed the excitement into which he had been roused was leaving came out of his corner i don t know all have done in my said mr putting out his hands as if to my he knows best meaning for he has always been at my elbow whispering me you see the that he is about my neck you find him in my house you find him in my business david you heard him hut a httle time ago what need have i to say more you haven t need to say so much nor half so much nor anything at all observed half defiant and half you wouldn t have took it up so if it hadn t been for the wine you ll think better of it to morrow sir if i have said too much or more than i meant what of it i haven t stood by it the door opened and gliding in without a of colour in her face put
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her arm round his neck and steadily said papa you are not well come with me he laid his head upon her shoulder as if he were oppressed with heavy shame and went out with her her eyes met mine for but an instant yet i saw how much she knew of what had passed i didn t expect he d cut up so rough master said but it s nothing i ll be friends with him to morrow it s for his good i m anxious for his good i gave him no answer and went upstairs into the quiet room where had so often sat beside me at my books nobody came near me until late at night i took np a book and tried to read i heard the strike twelve and was still reading without knowing what i read when touched me you will be going early in the morning let us say good bye now she had been weeping but her face then was so calm and beautiful heaven bless you she said giving me her hand dearest i returned i see you ask me not to speak of to but is there to be done there is god to trust in she replied can do nothing who come to you with my poor sorrows and make mine so much lighter she re lied dear no dear i said it is fur me who am so poor in all in which you are so rich goodness resolution all noble qualities to doubt or direct you but you know how much i love you and how much i owe you you will never sacrifice yourself to a mistaken sense of duty david more agitated for a moment than i had ever seen her she took her hand from me and moved a step back say you have no such thought dear much more than sister think of the gift of such a heart as yours of such a love as yours oh long long afterwards i saw that face rise up before me with its momentary look not wondering not not oh long long afterwards i saw that look as it did now into the lovely smile with which she told me she had no fear for herself i need have none for her and parted from me by the name of brother and was gone it was dark in the morning when i got upon the coach at the inn door the day was just breaking when we were about to start and then as i sat thinking of her came struggling up the coach side through the mingled day and night s head said he in a whisper as he hung by the iron on the roof i thought you d be glad to hear before you went off that there are no squares between us i ve been into his room and we ve made it all smooth why though i m i m useful to him you know and he understands his interest when he isn t in liquor what an agreeable man he is after all master i obliged myself to say that i was glad he had made his apology oh to be sm e said when a person s you know what s an apology so easy i say i suppose with a jerk you have sometimes j a before it was ripe master t suppose i have i replied did that last night said but it ll yet it only wants attending to i can wait i in his he got down again as the coachman got up for anything i know he was eating something to keep the raw morning air out but he made motions with his mouth as if the were ripe already and he were his lips over it chapter xl the wanderer we had a very serious conversation in street that night about the domestic i have detailed in the last chapter my aunt was deeply interested in them and walked up and down the room with her arms folded for more than two hours afterwards whenever she was particularly she always performed one of these and the amount of her might always be estimated by the duration of her walk on this occasion she was so much disturbed in mind as to find it necessary to open the bed room door and make a course for herself the full extent of the bed i from wall to wall and while mr dick and i sat quietly by the fire she kept passing in and out along this measured track at an pace with the regularity of a clock when my aunt and i were left to ourselves by mr dick s going out to bed i sat down to write my letter to the two old ladies by that time she was tired of walking and sat by the fire with her dress tucked up as usual but instead of sitting in her usual manner holding her glass upon her knee she suffered it to stand neglected on the chimney piece and resting her left elbow on her right arm and her chin on her left hand looked thoughtfully at me as often as i raised my eyes from what i was about i met hers i am in the of my dear she would assure me with a nod but i am and sorry i had been too busy to observe until after she was gone to bed that she had left her night mixture as she always called it on the chimney piece she came to her door with even more than david her usual affection of manner when i knocked to her with this discovery but only said i have not the heart to take it ti ot to night and shook her head and went in again she read
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my letter to the two old ladies in the morning and approved of it i posted it and had nothing to do then but wait as patiently as i could for the reply i was still in this state of expectation and had been for nearly a week when i left the doctor s one snowy night to walk home it had been a bitter day and a cutting north east wind had blown for some time the wind had gone down with the light and so the snow had come on it was a heavy settled fall i recollect in great and it lay thick the noise of wheels and tread of people were as hushed as if the streets had been strewn that depth with feathers my shortest way home and i naturally took the shortest way on such a night was through saint martin s lane now the church which gives its name to the lane stood in a less free situation at that time there being no open space before it and the lane winding down to the strand as i passed the steps of the i encountered at the corner a woman s face it looked in mine passed across the n i row lane and disappeared i knew it i had seen it somewhere but i could not remember where i had some association with it that struck upon my heart directly but i was thinking of anything else when it came upon me and was confused on the steps of the church there was the stooping figure of a man who had put down some burden on the smooth snow to it my seeing the face and my seeing him were i don t think i had stopped in my surprise but in any case as i went on he rose turned and came down towards me i stood face to face with mr then i remembered the woman it was to had given the money that night in the kitchen side by side with whom he would not have seen his dear niece ham had told me for all the treasures wrecked in the sea we shook hands heartily at first neither of us could speak a word david r he said me tight it do my art good to see you sir well met well met well met my dear old friend said i i had my o coming to make for you sir tonight he said but knowing as your aunt was living along wi you for i ve been down way i was it was too late i should have come early in the morning sir away again said i yes sir he replied patiently shaking his head i m away to morrow where were you going now i asked well he lied shaking the snow out of his long hair i was a going to turn in in those days there was a side entrance to the stable yard of the golden cross the inn so memorable to me in with his misfortune ly opposite to where we stood i pointed out the put my arm his and went across two or three public rooms out of the stable yard and looking into one of them and finding it empty and a good fire burning i took him in there when i saw him in the light i observed not only that his hair was long and ragged but that his face was burnt dark by the sun he was the lines in his face and forehead were deeper and he had every appearance of having toiled and wandered through all varieties of weather but he looked very strong and like a man by of whom nothing could tire out he shook the snow from his hat and clothes and it away from his face while i was inwardly making these remarks as he down to me at a table with his back to the door by which we had entered he put out his rough hand again and grasped mine warmly i tell you r he said all i ve been and what all we ve i ve been fur and we ve but i tell you i rang the bell for something hot to drink he would have david nothing stronger than ale and while it was being brought and being warmed at the fire he sat thinking there was a fine gravity in his face i did not venture to disturb when she was a child he said lifting up his head soon after we were left alone she used to talk to me a deal about the sea and about them where the sea got to be dark and to lay a and a in the sun i odd times as her father made her think on it so much i t know you see but maybe she believed or hoped he had drifted out to them parts where the flowers is always a blowing and the country bright it is likely to have been a childish fancy i replied when she was lost said mr i know d in my mind as he would take her to them countries i know d in my mind as he d have told her wonders of em and how she was to be a lady and how he got her to listen to him first along o like when we see his mother i know d quite well as i was right i went across channel to france and landed as if i d fell down from the sky i saw the door move and the snow drift in i saw it move a little more and a hand softly to keep it open i found out a english gentleman as was in authority said mr and told him i was a going to seek
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my niece he got me them papers as i wanted fur to carry me through i t rightly know how they re called and he would have given me money but that i was thankful to have no need on i thank him kind for all he done i m sure i ve wrote afore you he says to me and i shall speak to many as will come that way and many will know you fur distant from here when you re a travelling alone i told him best as i was able what my was and went my way through france alone and on foot said i mostly a foot he rejoined sometimes in carts along with people going to market sometimes in empty many a day a foot and often with some poor soldier or another travelling to see his friends i couldn t talk to him said mr nor david he to me but we was company for one another too along the dusty roads i should have known that by his friendly tone when i come to any town he pursued i found the inn and waited about the yard till some one turned up some one mostly did as know d english then i told how that i was on my way to seek my niece and they told me what manner of was in the house and i waited to see any as seemed like her going in or out when it warn t em ly i went on by little and little when i come to a new village or that among the poor people i found they know d about me they would set me down at their cottage doors and give me what not fur to eat and drink and show me where to sleep and many a woman r as has had a daughter of about era ly s age i ve found a waiting for me at our s cross outside the fur to do me sim lar some has had daughters as was dead and god only knows how good them mothers was to me it was at the door i saw her haggard listening face distinctly my dread was lest he should turn his head and see her too they would often put their children lar their little girls said mr upon my knee and many a time you might have seen me sitting at their doors when night was coming on a most as if they d been my darling s children oh my darling overpowered by sudden grief he sobbed aloud i laid my trembling hand upon the hand he put before his face sir he said don t take no notice in a very little while he took his hand away and put it in his breast and went on with his story they often walked with me he said in the morning maybe a mile or two upon the road and when we parted and i said i m very thankful to you god bless you they always seemed to understand and answered pleasant at last i come to the sea it warn t hard you may suppose for a man like me to work his way over to italy when i got i on as i had long afore the people was just as good to me and i should have david gone from town to town maybe the country through but that i got news of her seen them mountains yonder one as know d his servant see em there all three and told me how they travelled and where they was i made for them mountains r day and night ever so fur as i went so fur the seemed to shift away from me but i come up with em and i crossed em when i got nigh the place as i had been told of i began to think within my own self what shall i do when i see her v the listening face insensible to the night still drooped at the door and the hands begged me prayed me not to cast it forth i never doubted her said mr no not a bit on y let her see my face on y let her my voice on y let my still afore her bring to her the home she had fled away from and the child she had been and if she had to be a royal lady she d have fell down at my feet i know d it well many a time in my sleep had i r out uncle and seen her fall like death afore me many a time in my sleep had i raised her up and whispered to her era y my dear i am come fur to bring forgiveness and to take you home he stopped and shook his head and went on with a sigh he was to me now em ly was all i bought a country dress to put upon her and i know d that once found she would walk beside me over them stony roads go where i would and never never leave me more to put that dress upon her and to cast off what she wore to take her on my arm again and wander towards home to stop sometimes upon the road and heal her bruised feet and her worse bruised heart was all that i of now i t believe i should have done so much as look at him but r it warn t to be not yet i was too late and they was gone i couldn t learn some said some said i travelled and i travelled but i found no em ly and i travelled home how long ago i asked a matter o days said mr i sighted the david old
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said i no said nothing will induce it if i was to carry a half hundred weight upon it all the way to it would be up again the the weight was taken off you have david idea what obstinate hair mine is i am quite a was a little disappointed i must confess hut thoroughly charmed by his good nature too i told him how i esteemed his and said that his hair must have taken all the obstinacy out of his character for he had none oh returned laughing i assure you it s quite an old story my unfortunate hair my uncle s wife couldn t bear it she said it exasperated her it stood very much in my way too when i first fell in love with very much did she ct to it she didn t rejoined but her eldest sister the one that s the beauty quite made game of it i understand in fact all the sisters h at it agreeable i said i yes returned with perfect innocence it s a joke for us they pretend that has a lock of it in her desk and is obliged to shut it in a clasped book to keep it down we laugh about it by the bye my dear said i your experience may suggest something to me when you became engaged to the young lady whom you have just mentioned did you make a regular proposal to her family was there anything like what we are going through to day for instance i added nervously why replied on whose attentive face a thoughtful shade had stolen it was rather a painful transaction in my case you see being of so much use in the family none of them could endure the thought of her ever being married indeed they had quite settled among themselves that she never was to be married and they called her the old maid accordingly when i mentioned it with the greatest precaution to mrs the mamma said i the mamma said reverend when i mentioned it with every possible precaution to mrs the effect upon her was such that she gave a scream and m insensible i couldn t approach the subject again for months l you did it at last said i well the reverend did said he is an excellent man most in every way and he pointed out to her that she ought as a christian to reconcile herself to the sacrifice especially as it was so uncertain and to bear no feeling towards me as to myself i give you my word i felt a perfect bird of prey towards the family the sisters took your part i hope why i can t say they did he returned when we had comparatively reconciled mrs to it we had to break it to you recollect my mentioning as the one that has something the matter with her perfectly she clenched both her hands said looking at me in dismay shut her eyes turned lead color became perfectly stiff and took nothing for two days but toast and water administered with a what a very unpleasant girl i remarked oh i beg your pardon said she is a very charming girl but she has a great deal of feeling in fact they all have told me afterwards that the self reproach she while she was in attendance upon no words could describe i know it must have been severe by my own which were like a criminal s after was restored we still had to break it to the other eight and it produced various effects upon them of a most pathetic nature the two little ones whom have only just left off me at any rate they are all reconciled to it now i hope said i ye yes i should say they were on the whole resigned to it said doubtfully the fact is we avoid mentioning the subject and my unsettled prospects and indifferent circumstances are a great consolation to them there will be a deplorable scene whenever we are married it will be much more like a funeral than a wedding and they ll all hate me for taking her away his honest face as he looked at me with a comic shake of his head me more in the remembrance than it did in tho david reality for i was by this time in a state of such excessive and wandering of mind as to be quite unable to fix my attention on on our approaching the house where the lived i was at such a in respect of my personal looks and presence of mind that proposed a gentle in the form of a glass of ale this having been administered at a neighbouring public house he conducted me with tottering steps to the s door i had a vague sensation of being as it were on new when the maid opened it and of wavering somehow across a hall with a weather glass in it into a quiet little drawing room on the commanding a neat garden also of sitting down here on a sofa and seeing s hair start up now his hat was removed like one of those little figures made of springs that fly out of boxes when the lid is taken ofl also ol hearing an old fashioned clock away on the piece and trying to make it keep time to the of my heart which it wouldn t also of looking round the room fur any sign of and seeing none also of thinking that once in the distance and was instantly choked by somebody ultimately i found myself into the fire place and bowing in great confusion to two dry little elderly ladies dressed in black and each looking wonderfully like a preparation in or tan of the late mr pray said one of the
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two little ladies be seated when i had done tumbling over and had sat upon something which was not a cat my first seat was i so far my sight as to perceive that mr had evidently been the youngest of the family that there was a of six or eight years between the two sisters and that the younger appeared to be the manager of the conference inasmuch as she had my letter in her hand so familiar as it looked to me and yet so odd and was referring to it through an eye glass they were dressed alike but this sister wore her dress with a more youthful air than the other and perhaps had a trifle more or or h or or some little of that kind which made he more lively they were both upright in their carriage david composed and quiet the sister who had not my letter had her arms crossed on her breast and resting on each other hke an idol mr i believe said the sister who had got my letter addressing herself to this was a frightful beginning had to indicate that i was mr and i had to lay claim to myself and they had to themselves of a opinion that was mr and altogether we were in a nice condition to improve it we all distinctly heard give two short and receive another choke mr said the sister with the letter i did something bowed i suppose and was all attention when the other sister struck in my sister said she being most with matters of this nature will state what we consider most calculated to promote the happiness of both parties i discovered afterwards that miss was an authority in affairs of the heart by reason of there having existed a certain mr who played short and was supposed to have been of her my private opinion is that this was entirely a assumption and that was altogether innocent of any such sentiments to which he had never given any sort of expression that i could ever hear of both miss and miss had a superstition however that he would have declared his passion if he had not been cut short in his youth at about sixty by over drinking his constitution and an to set it right again by bath water they had a lurking suspicion even that he died of secret love though i must say there was a picture of him in the house with a nose which concealment did not appear to have ever upon we will not said miss enter on the past history of this matter our poor brother francis s death has that we had not said miss been in the habit of frequent association with our brother francis but there was no decided division or between us francis took his road we took and i in conference witli the i of david ours we considered it to the happiness of all parties it should be so and it was so each of the sisters leaned a little forward to speak shook her head after speaking and became upright again when silent miss never moved her arms she sometimes tunes upon them with her and i should think but never moved them our niece s position or supposed position is much changed by our brother francis s death said miss and therefore we consider our brother s opinions as regarded her position as being changed too we have no reason to doubt mr that you are a young gentleman possessed of good qualities and honorable character or that you have an affection or are fully persuaded that vou have an affection for our niece i as i usually did whenever i had a chance that nobody had ever los ed anybody else as i loved came to my assistance with a murmur miss was going on to make some when miss who appeared to be incessantly beset by a desire to refer to her brother francis struck in again if s mamma she said when she married our brother francis had at once said that there was not room for the family at the dinner table it would have been better for the happiness of all parties sister said miss perhaps we needn t mind that now sister said miss it belongs to the subject with your branch of the subject on which alone you are competent to speak i should not think of interfering on this branch of the subject i have a voice and an o it would have been better for the happiness of all parties if s mamma when she married our francis had mentioned plainly what her inter tions were we should then have known what we had to expect we should have said pray do not invite us at any time and all of misunderstanding would have been avoided when miss had shaken her head miss resumed again referring to my letter through her eye they both had g david little bright round twinkling eyes by t he way were like birds eyes they were not unlike birds altogether having a sharp brisk sudden manner and a httle short way of themselves like miss as i have said resumed you ask permission of my sister and myself mr to visit here as the accepted of our niece if our brother francis said miss breaking out again if i may call anything so calm a breaking out wished to surround himself with an atmosphere of doctors and of doctors only what right or desire had we to object none i am sure we have ever been far from wishing to ourselves on any one but why not say so let our brother francis and his wife have their society let my sister and myself have our society we can find it for
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ourselves i hope as this appeared to be addressed to and me both and i made some sort of reply was i think i observed myself that it was highly creditable to all concerned i don t in the least know what i meant sister said miss having now relieved her mind you can go on my dear miss proceeded mr my sister and i have been very careful indeed in considering this letter and we have not considered it without finally showing it to our niece and discussing it with our niece we have no doubt that you think you like her very much think ma am i began oh but miss giving me a look just like a sharp as that i would not interrupt the i begged pardon affection said miss glancing at her sister for which she gave in the form of a little nod to every mature affection homage devotion does not easily express itself its voice is low it is modest and retiring it lies in waits and waits such is the mature fruit sometimes a life away and finds it still in the shade of course i did not understand then that this was an allusion to her supposed experience of the stricken but i saw from the david gravity with which miss nodded her head that great weight was attached to these words the for i call them in comparison with such sentiments the light inclinations of very young people pursued miss are dust compared to rocks it is owing to the difficulty of knowing whether they are likely to endure or have any real foundation that my sister and myself have been very how to act mr and mr said my friend finding himself looked at i beg pardon of the inner temple i said miss again glancing at my letter said exactly so and became pretty red in the face now although i had not received any express encouragement as yet i fancied that i saw in the two little sisters and particularly in miss an enjoyment of this new and fruitful subject of domestic interest a settling down to make the most of it a disposition to pet it in which there was a good bright ray of hope i thought i perceived that miss would have uncommon satisfaction in two young lovers like and me and that miss would have hardly less satisfaction in seeing her us and in in with her own particular department of the subject whenever that impulse was strong upon her this gave me courage to protest most vehemently that i loved better than i could tell or any one believe that all my friends knew how i loved her that my aunt every one who knew me knew how i loved her and how earnest my love had made me for the truth of this i appealed to and firing up as if he were plunging into a debate really did come out nobly me in good round terms and in a plain sensible practical manner that evidently made a favourable impression i speak if i may presume to say so as one who has some little experience of such things said being myself engaged to a young lady one of ten down in and seeing no probability at present of our engagement coming to a termination you may be able to confirm what i have said mr david observed miss evidently taking a new interest in him of the affection that is modest and retiring that waits and waits v entirely ma am said miss looked at miss and shook her head gravely miss looked at miss and heaved a little sigh sister said miss take my smelling bottle miss revived herself with a few of and i looking on with great solicitude the while and then went on to say rather faintly my sister and myself have been in great doubt mr what course we ought to take in reference to the or imaginary of such very young people as your friend mr and our niece our brother francis s child remarked miss if our brother francis s wife had found it convenient in her life time though she had an right to act as she thought best to invite the family to her dinner table we might have known our brother francis s child better at the present moment sister proceed miss turned my letter so as to bring the towards herself and referred through her to some notes she had made on that part of it it seems to us said she prudent mr to bring these feelings to the test of our own observation at present we know nothing of them and are not in a situation to judge how much reality there may be in them therefore we are inclined so far to to mr s proposal as to admit his visits here i shall never dear ladies i exclaimed relieved of an immense load of apprehension forget your kindness but pursued miss but we would prefer to regard those visits mr as made at present to us we must guard ourselves from any positive engagement between mr and our niece until we have had an opportunity until you have had an opportunity sister said miss david be it so assented miss with a sigh until i have had ail opportunity of observing them said turning to me you feel i am sure that nothing could be more re or considerate nothing cried i i am deeply sensible of it in this position of said miss again referring to her notes and admitting his visits on this understanding only we must require from mr a distinct assurance on his of honor that no communication of any kind shall take place between him and our niece without our knowledge that no project whatever shall be entertained with regard to
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our niece without being first submitted to us to you sister miss interposed be it so assented miss to me and receiving our we must make this a most express and serious not to be broken on any account we wished mr to be accompanied by some confidential friend to day vith an inclination of her head towards who bowed in order that there might be no doubt or on this subject if mr or if you mr feel the least scruple in giving this promise i beg you to take time to consider it i exclaimed in a state of high that not a moment s consideration could be necessary i bound myself by the required promise in a most impassioned manner called upon to witness it and myself as the most of characters if i ever from it in the least degree stay said miss holding up her hand we resolved before we had the pleasure of receiving you two gentlemen to leave you alone for a quarter of an hour to consider this point you will allow us to retire it in vain for me to say that no consideration was necessary they persisted in withdrawing for the time accordingly these little birds out with great dignity leaving me to receive the congratulations of and to feel as if i were translated to regions of exquisite happiness exactly at the of the quarter of an hour they reappeared with no less dignity than david tliey had disappeared they had gone rustling away as if their lit tie dresses were made of autumn leaves and they came rustling back in like manner i then bound myself once more to the prescribed conditions sister said miss the rest is with you miss her arms for the first time took the notes and glanced at them we shall be happy said miss to see mr to dinner every sunday if it should suit his convenience our hour is three i bi wed in the course of the week said miss we shall be happy to see mr to tea our hour is half past six bowed again in the week said miss but as a rule not oftener i bowed again miss said miss mentioned in mr s letter will perhaps call upon us when visiting is better for the happiness of all parties we are glad to receive visits and return them when it is better for the happiness of all parties that no visiting should take place as in the case of our brother francis and his establishment that is quite different i intimated that my aunt would be proud and delighted to make their acquaintance though i must say i was not quite sure of their getting on very satisfactorily together the conditions being now closed i expressed my in the warmest manner and taking the hand first of miss and then of miss pressed it in each case to my lips miss then arose and begging mr to excuse us for a minute requested me to follow her i obeyed all in a tremble and was conducted into another room there i found my blessed stopping her ears behind the door with her dear little face against the wall and in the plate warmer with his head tied up in a oh beautiful she was in her black frock and how she david g sobbed and cried at first and wouldn t come out from tbe how fond we were of one another when she did come out at last and what a state of i was in when we took out of tlie plate warmer and restored him to tbe light very much and were all three my dearest now indeed my own for ever oh don t pleaded please are you not ray own for ever oh yes of course i am cried but i am so frightened my own ob yes i don t like him said why don t be go who my life your friend said it isn t any business of bis what a stupid be must be my love there never was so as her ways he is the best creature ob but we don t want any best creatures my dear i argued you will soon know him well and like bim of all things and here is my aunt coming soon and you ll like her of all s too when vou know her no please don t bring ber said giving me a little kiss and folding ber hands don t i know she s a naughty mischief making old thing don t let ber come which was a corruption of david remonstrance was of no use then so i laughed and admired and was very in love and very happy and she showed me s new trick of standing on his hind legs in a corner which he did for about tbe space of a of lightning and then fell down and i don t know how long i should have stayed there of if miss bad not come in to take me away miss was very fond of she told me was exactly like what she had been herself at her age she must have altered a good deal and she treated just as if she had been a toy i wanted to persuade to come and see but on my proposing it she ran oft to her own room and locked herself in so went to without her and walked away with him on air could be more satisfactory and tbe david are very agreeable old ladies t am sure i shouldn t be at all surprised if you were to be married years before me does your play on any instrument i in the pride of my heart she knows enough of the piano to teach it to her little sisters said does she sing at
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all i asked why she sings sometimes to up the others a little when they re out of spirits said nothing scientific she doesn t sing to the said i oh dear no said paint at all not at all said i promised that he should hear sing and see some of her flower painting he said he should like it very much and we went home arm in arm in great good humour and delight i encouraged him to talk about on the way which he did with a reliance on her that i very much admired i compared her in my mind with i with considerable inward satisfaction but i candidly admitted to myself that she seemed to be an excellent kind of girl for too of course my aunt was immediately made acquainted with the successful issue of the conference and with all that had been said and done in the course of it she was happy to see me so happy and promised to call on s without loss of time but she took such a long walk up and down our rooms that night while i was writing to that i began to think she meant to walk till morning my letter to was a fervent and grateful one all the good effects that had resulted from my following her advice she wrote by return of post to me her letter was hopeful earnest and cheerful she was always cheerful from that time i had my hands more full than ever now my daily journeys to considered was a long way oflf and i naturally wanted to go there as often as i could the proposed tea drinking being quite i with miss la for per david to visit every saturday afternoon without to my privileged sundays so tlie close of every week was a delicious time for me and i got through the rest of the week by looking forward to it i was wonderfully relieved to find that my aunt and s rubbed on all things considered much more smoothly than i could have expected my aunt made her promised visit within a few days of the conference and within a few more days s called upon her in due state and form similar but more friendly took place afterwards usually at intervals of three or four weeks i know that my aunt distressed s very much by utterly setting at naught the dignity of fly conveyance and walking out to at extraordinary times as shortly after breakfast or just before tea likewise by wearing her bonnet in any manner that happened to be comfortable to her head without at all to the prejudices of civilization on that subject but s soon agreed to regard my aunt as an eccentric and somewhat masculine lady with a strong understanding and although my aunt occasionally ruffled the feathers of s by expressing opinions on various points of ceremony she loved me too well not to sacrifice some of her little peculiarities to the general harmony the only member of our small society who positively refused to himself to circumstances was he never saw my aunt without immediately displaying every tooth in his head retiring under a chair and growling incessantly with now and then a howl as if she really were too much for his feelings all kinds of treatment were tried with him scolding bringing him to street where he instantly dashed at the two cats to the terror of all but he never could prevail upon himself to bear my aunt s society he would sometimes think he had got the better of his objection and be amiable fur a few minutes and then would put up his nose and howl to that extent that there was nothing for it but to blind him and put him in the plate warmer at length regularly muffled him in a and shut him up there whenever my aunt was reported at the door one thing troubled me much after we had into this quiet david train it was that seemed by one consent to be regarded like a pretty toy or my aunt with whom she gradually became always called her little blossom and the pleasure of miss s life was to wait upon her curl her hair make ornaments for her and treat her like a pet child what miss did her sister did as a matter of course it was very odd to me but they all seemed to treat in her degree as treated in his i made up my mind to speak to about this and one day when we were out walking for we were by miss after a while to go out walking by ourselves i said to her that i wished she could get them to behave towards her differently because you know my darling i remonstrated you are a child there said now you re going to be cross cross my love i am sure they re very kind to me said and i am very happy well but my dearest life said i you might be very happy and yet be treated gave me a look the prettiest look and then began to sob saying if i didn t like her why had i ever wanted so much to be engaged to her and why didn t i go away now if i couldn t bear her what could i do but kiss away her tears and tell her how i on her after that i am sure i am very affectionate said you t to be cruel to me cruel my precious love as if i would or could be cruel to you for the world then don t find fault with me said making a of her mouth and i ll be good i was charmed by her presently asking me of her own accord to give her that book
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i had once spoken of and to show her to keep accounts as i had once promised i would i brought the volume with me on my next visit i got it prettily bound first to make it look less dry and more inviting and as we strolled david about the common i showed her an old housekeeping book of my aunt s and gave her a set of and a pretty little pencil case and box of leads to practise house keeping with but the book made s head ache and the figures made her cry they wouldn t add up she said so she rubbed them out and drew httle and of me and all over the then i tried verbal instruction in domestic matters as we walked about on a saturday afternoon sometimes for example when we passed a butcher s shop i would say now suppose my pet that we were married and you were going to buy a shoulder of mutton for dinner would you know how to buy it my pretty little s face would fall and she would make her mouth into a bud again as if she would very much prefer to shut mine with a kiss would you know how to buy it my darling i would repeat perhaps if i were very would think a little and then reply perhaps with great triumph why the butcher would know how to sell it and what need know oh you silly boy so when i once asked with an eye to the book what she would do if we were married and i were to say i should like a nice irish she replied that she would tell the servant to make it and then clapped her little hands together across my arm and laughed in such a charming manner that she was more delightful than ever consequently the principal use to which the book was devoted was being put down in the corner for to stand upon but was so pleased when she had trained him to stand upon it without to come off and at the same time to hold the pencil case in his mouth that i was very glad i had bought it and we fell back on the case and the flower painting and the about never off ta ra la and were as as the week was long i occasionally wished i could venture david to hint to miss that she treated the of my heart a httle too much hke a and i sometimes awoke as it were wondering to find that i had fallen into the general fault and treated her like a too but not often chapter mischief i feel as if it were not for me to record though this manuscript is intended for no eyes but mine how hard i worked at that tremendous short hand and all improvement to it in my sense of responsibility to and her i will only add to what i have already written of my perseverance at this time of my life and of a patient and continuous energy which then began to be within me and which i know to be the strong part of my character if it have any strength at all that there on looking back i the source of my success i have been very fortunate in worldly matters many men have worked much harder and not succeeded half so well but i never could have done what i have done without the habits of order and diligence without the determination to myself on one object at a time no matter how quickly its successor should come upon its heels which i then formed heaven knows i write this in no spirit of self the man who his own life as i do mine in going on here from page to page had need to have been a good man indeed if he would be spared the sharp consciousness of many talents neglected many opportunities wasted many and constantly at war within his breast and him i do not hold one natural gift i dare say that i have not abused my meaning simply is that whatever i have tried to do in life i have tried with all my heart to do well that whatever i have ted myself to i have devoted myself to completely that in great aims and in small i have always been thoroughly in earnest i have never believed it possible that any natural or improved ability can claim from the companionship of the steady plain hard working qualities and hope to gain its end there is no such thing as such on this earth some talent and c david some fortunate opportunity may form the two sides of the ladder on which some men mount but the rounds of that ladder must be made of stuff to stand wear and tear and there is no substitute for thorough going ardent and sincere earnestness never to put one hand to anything on which i could throw my whole self and never to of my work whatever it was i find now to have been my golden rules how much of the practice i have just reduced to i owe to will not repeat here my narrative proceeds to with a thankful love she came on a visit of a fortnight to the doctor s mr was the doctor s old friend and the doctor wished to talk with him and do him good it had been matter of conversation with when she was last in town and this visit was the result she and her father came together i was not much surprised to hear from her that she had engaged to find a lodging in the neighbourhood for mrs whose complaint required change of air and w ho would be charmed to have it in such company neither was i surprised
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now making up my mind that i should like her to look exactly as she looked at such a time and then doubting whether i should not prefer her looking as she looked at such another time and almost worrying myself into a fever about it i was troubled by no doubt of her being very pretty in any case but it fell out that i had never seen her look so well she was not in the drawing room when i presented to her little but was keeping out of the way i knew where to look for her now and sure enough i found her stopping her ears again behind the same dull old door at first she wouldn t come at all and then sha pleaded for five minutes by my watch when at length she put her arm through mine to be taken to the drawing room her charming little face was flushed and had never been so pretty but when we went into the room and it turned pale she was ten thousand times prettier yet was afraid of she had told me that she knew was too clever but when she saw her at once so cheerful and so earnest and so thoughtful and so good she gave a faint little cry of pleased surprise and just put her arms round s neck and laid her innocent cheek against her face i never was so happy i never was so pleased as when i saw those two sit down together side by side as when i saw my little darling looking up so naturally to those cordial eyes as when i saw the tender beautiful regard which cast upon her miss and miss partook in way of my joy it was the tea table in the world miss presided ut and handed the sweet seed cake the little sisters had a bird uke fondness for picking up seeds and j at sugar miss la looked on with patronage as if our happy love david were all her work and we were perfectly contented with ourselves and one another the gentle cheerfulness of went to all their hearts her quiet interest in everything that interested her manner of making acquaintance wi h who responded instantly her pleasant way when was ashamed to come over to her usual seat by me her modest grace and ease a crowd of blushing little marks of confidence from seemed to make our circle quite complete i am so glad said after tea that you like me i didn t think you would and i want more than ever to be liked now mills is gone i have omitted to mention it by the bye miss mills had sailed and and i had gone aboard a great east at to see her and we had had preserved and and other of that sort for lunch and we had left miss mills weeping on a camp stool on the quarter deck with a large new under her arm in which the original reflections awakened by the contemplation of ocean were to be recorded under lock and key said she was afraid i must have given her an character but corrected that directly oh no i she said shaking her curls at me it was all praise he thinks so much of your opinion that i was quite afraid of it my good opinion cannot strengthen his attachment to some people whom he knows said with a smile it is not worth their having but please let me have it said in her way if you can i we made merry about s wanting to be liked and said i was a goose and she didn t like me at any rate and the short evening flew away on wings the time was at hand when the coach was to call for us i was standing alone before the fire when came stealing softly in to give me that usual precious little kiss before i went don t you think if i had had her for a friend a long time ago said her bright eyes shining very brightly and hei david little i hand idly ing itself with one of the buttons of mj coat i ht have been more clever perhaps my love said i what nonsense do you think it is nonsense returned without looking at me are you sure it is of course i am i have forgotten said still turning the button id and round what relation is to you you dear bad boy no blood relation i replied but we were brought up together like brother and sister i hy you ever fell in love with me said beginning on another button of my coat perhaps because couldn t see you and not love you pose you had never seen me at all said going to another button suppose we had never been born said i gaily i wondered what she was thinking about as i glanced in silence at the little soft hand up the row of buttons on my coat and at the hair that lay against my breast and at the lashes of her downcast eyes slightly rising as they followed her idle fingers at length her eyes were lifted up to mine and she stood on to give me more thoughtfully than usual that precious httle kiss once twice three times and went out of tlie room they all came back together within five minutes afterwards and s unusual was quite gone then she was resolved to put through the whole of his performances before the coach came they took some time not so much on account of their variety as s reluctance and were still unfinished when it was heard at the door there was a hurried but affectionate parting between and herself and was to write to who was not to mind her letters being foolish she
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as you didn t understand me master resumed in the same manner i may take the liberty of mentioning being among friends that i have called doctor strong s attention to the on of mrs strong it s much against the grain with me i assure you to be concerned in anything so unpleasant but really as it is we re all mixing ourselves up with what t to be that was what my meaning was sir when you didn t understand me i wonder now when i recall his that i did not collar him and try to shake the breath out of his body i dare say i didn t make myself very clear he went on nor you neither naturally we was both of us inclined to give such a subject a wide berth ever at last i have made up ray mind to speak plain and i have mentioned to doctor strong that did you speak sir this was to the doctor who had moaned the sound might have touched any heart i thought but it had no effect upon s mentioned to doctor strong he proceeded that any one may see that mr and the lovely and agreeable lady as is doctor strong s wife are too sweet on one another really the time is come we being at present all mixing ourselves up with what david t to le when doctor strong must b told that this wa fall as plain to everybody as the sun before mr went to india that mr made excuses to come back for nothing else and that he s always here for nothing else when you come in sir i was just putting it to ray fellow j towards whom he turned to say to doctor strong upon his word and honor whether he d ever been of this opinion ago or not come mr sir would you be so good as tell us yes or no sir come partner for god s sake my dear doctor said mr again his hand upon the doctor s arm don t attach too much weight to any suspicions i may have entertained there cried shaking his head what a melancholy confirmation ain t it him such an old friend bless your soul when i was nothing but a clerk in his office i ve seen him twenty times if i ve seen him once quite in a taking about it quite put out you know and very proper in him as a father i m sure can t blame him to think that miss was mixing herself up with what t to be my dear strong said mr w in a tremulous voice my good friend i needn t tell you that it has been my vice to look for some one master motive in everybody and to try all actions by one narrow test i may have fallen into such doubts as i have had h this mistake you have had doubts said the doctor without lifting up his head you have had doubts speak up fellow partner urged i had at one time certainly said mr i god forgive me i thought you had no no no returned the doctor in a tone of most pathetic grief i thought at one time said mr that you wished to send abroad to a desirable separation no no no returned the doctor to give pleasure by making some ion for the companion of her childhood nothing else so i found said mr i couldn t doubt it when david you told me so but thought i you to remember the narrow construction wh ch has been my sin that in a case where there was so much in point of years that s tlie way to put it you see master observed with a and offensive pity a lady of such youth and such attractions however real her respect for you might have been influenced in marrying by worldly considerations only i made no allowance for innumerable feelings and circumstances that may have all tended to good for heaven s sake remember that how kind he puts it said shaking his head always ing her from one point of view said mr but by all that is dear to you my old friend i entreat you to consider what it was i am forced to confess now having no escape no there s no way out of it mr sir observed when it s got to this that i did said mr glancing helplessly and at his partner that i did doubt her and think her wanting in her duty to you and that i did sometimes if i must say all feel averse to being in such a familiar relation towards her as to see what i saw or in my theory fancied that i saw i never mentioned this to any one i never meant it to be known to any one and though it is terrible to you to hear said mr quite subdued if you knew how terrible it is to me to tell you would feel compassion for me the doctor in the perfect goodness of his nature put out his hand mr held it for a httle while in his with his head bowed down i am sure said himself into the silence like a that this is a subject full of to everybody but since we have got so far i ought to take the liberty of mentioning that has noticed it too i turned upon him and asked him how he dared refer to me oh it s very kind of you returned all over and we all know what an amiable character is but you know that the moment i spoke to you the other david you knew what i meant you know you knew what i meant don t
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deny it you deny it with the best intentions but don t do it i i saw the mild eye of the good old doctor turned upon me for a moment and i felt that the confession of mv old and was too plainly written in my face to be overlooked it was of no use raging i could not undo that say what i would i could not it we were silent again and remained so until the doctor rose and walked twice or thrice across the room presently he returned to where his chair stood and leaning on the back of it and occasionally putting his handkerchief to his eyes with a simple honesty that did him more honor to my thinking than any disguise he could have affected said i have been much to blame i believe i have been very much to blame i have exposed one whom i hold in my heart to trials and i call them even to have been conceived in anybody s inmost mind of which she never but for me could have been the object gave a kind of i think to express sympathy of which my said the doctor never but for me could have been the object gentlemen i am old now as you know i do not feel to night that i have much to live for but my hfe my life upon the truth and honor of the dear lady who has been the subject of this conversation i do not think that the best of chivalry the of the and most romantic figure ever imagined by painter could have said this with a more impressive and dignity than the plain old doctor did but i am not prepared he went on to deny perhaps i may have been without knowing it in some degree prepared to admit that i may have that lady into an unhappy marriage i am a man quite to observe and i cannot but believe that the observation of several people of different ages and positions all too tending in one direction and that o natural is better than mine i had often admired as i have elsewhere described his david manner towards bis youthful wife but the respectful tenderness be manifested in every reference to her on this occasion and the almost manner in which he put away from him the doubt of her integrity exalted him in my eyes beyond description i married that lady said the doctor when she was extremely young i took her to myself when her character was scarcely formed so far as it was developed it had been my happiness to form it i knew her father well i knew her well i had taught her what i could for the love of all her beautiful and virtuous qualities if i did her wrong as i fear i did in taking advantage but i never meant it of her gratitude and her i ask pardon of that lady in my heart he walked across the room and came back to the same place holding the chair with a grasp that trembled like his subdued voice in its earnestness i regarded myself as a refuge for her from the dangers and of life i persuaded myself that unequal though we were in years she would live and with me i did not shut out of my consideration the time when i should leave her free and still young and still beautiful but with her judgment more no gentlemen upon my truth his homely figure seemed to be up by his fidelity and generosity every word he uttered had a force that no other grace could have imparted to it my life with this lady has been very happy until to night i have had occasion to bless the day on which i did her great injustice his voice more and more faltering in the utterance of these words stopped for a few moments then he went on once awakened from my dream i have been a poor in one way or other all my life i see how natural it is that she should have some feeling towards her old companion and her equal that she does regard him with some innocent regret with some thoughts of what might have been but for me is i fear too true much that i have seen but not noted has come back upon me with new meaning during this last trying hour david but beyond this gentlemen the dear lady s name never must be coupled with a word a breath of doubt for a little while his eye kindled and his voice was firm for a little while he was again silent presently he proceeded as before it only remains for me to bear the knowledge of the i have occasioned as as i can it is she who should reproach not i to save her from cruel that even my friends have not been able to avoid becomes my duty the more retired we live the better i shall discharge it and when the time comes may it come soon if it be his merciful pleasure when my death shall release her from i shall close my eyes upon her honored face with unbounded confidence and love and leave her with no sorrow then to happier and brighter days i could not see him for the tears which his earnestness and goodness so adorned by and so the perfect simplicity of his manner brought into my eyes he had moved to the door when he added gentlemen i have shown you my heart i am sure you will respect it what we have said to night is never to be said more give me an old friend s arm up stairs mr hastened to him without a word they went slowly out
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resumed our usual work on the day preceding its the doctor gave me with his own hands a folded note not sealed it was addressed to myself and laid an on me in a few affectionate words never to refer to the subject of that evening had confided it to my aunt but to no one else it was not a subject i could discuss with and certainly had not the least suspicion of what had passed neither i felt convinced had mrs strong then several weeks elapsed before i saw the least change in her it came on slowly like a cloud when there is no wind at first she seemed to wonder at the gentle compassion with which the doctor spoke to her and at his wish that she should have her mother with her to relieve the dull monotony of her life often when we were at work and she was sitting by i would see her pausing and looking at him with that memorable face afterwards i sometimes observed her rise with her eyes full of tears and go out of the room gradually an unhappy shadow fell upon her beauty and deepened every day mrs was a regular of the cottage then but she talked and talked and saw nothing as this change stole on once hke sunshine in the doctor s house the doctor became older in appearance and more grave but the sweetness of his temper the placid kindness of his manner and his benevolent solicitude for her if they were capable of any increase were increased i saw him once early on the morning of her birthday when she came to sit in the window while we were at work which she had always done but now began to do with a timid and uncertain air that i thought very touching take her forehead between his hands kiss it and go hurriedly away too much moved to remain i saw her stand where he had left her like a statue and then bend down her head and clasp her hands and weep i cannot say how sorrowfully sometimes after that i fancied that she tried to speak even to david me in intervals when we were alone but she never uttered word the doctor always had some new project for her in amusements away from home with her mother and mrs who was very fond of amusements and very easily dissatisfied with anything else entered into them with great good will and was loud in her but in a unhappy way only went whither she was led and seemed to have no care for anything i did not know what to think neither did my aunt who must have walked at various times a hundred miles in her uncertainty what was strangest of all was that the only real relief which seemed to make its way into the secret region of this domestic made its way there in the person of mr dick what his thoughts were on the subject or what his observation was i am as unable to explain as i dare say he would have been to assist me in the task but as i have recorded in the narrative of my school his veneration for the doctor was unbounded and there is a of perception in real attachment even when it is borne towards man by one of the lower animals which leaves the highest intellect behind to this mind of the heart if i may call it so in mr dick some bright ray of the truth shot straight he had proudly resumed his privilege in many of his spare hours of walking up and down the garden with the doctor as he had been accustomed to pace up and down the doctor s walk at but matters were no sooner in this state than he devoted all his spare time and got up earlier to make it more to these if he had never been so happy as when the doctor read that marvellous performance the dictionary to him he was now quite miserable unless the doctor pulled it out of his pocket and began when the doctor and i were engaged he now fell into the custom of walking up and down with mrs strong and helping her to trim her favorite flowers or weed the beds i dare say h rarely spoke a dozen words in an hour but his quiet interest and his wistful face found immediate response in both their breasts each knew that the other liked him and that he loved both and he became what no one else could be a link between them when i think of him with his wise face walking up david and with the doctor delighted to be battered by the hard words in the dictionary when i think of him carrying huge watering pots after kneeling down in very of es at patient work among the uttle leaves expressing as no philosopher could have expressed in every thing he did a delicate desire to be her friend sympathy and affection out of every hole in the watering pot when i think of him never wandering in that better mind of his to which addressed itself never bringing the unfortunate king charles into the garden never wavering in his grateful service never diverted from his e that there was or from his wish to set it right i really feel almost ashamed of having known that he was not quite in his wits taking account of the utmost i have done with mine but myself trot knows what that man is my aunt would proudly remark when we conversed about it dick will distinguish himself yet i must refer to one other topic before i close this chapter while the visit at the doctor s was still in progress i observed that the brought two or three letters every morning for who remained
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at until the rest went back it being a leisure time and that these were always directed in a business like manner by mr who now assumed a round legal hand i was glad to infer from these slight premises that mr was doing well and consequently was much surprised to receive about this time the following letter from his amiable wife monday evening you will doubtless be surprised my dear mr to receive this communication still more so by its contents still more so by the of confidence which i beg to impose but my feelings as a wife and mother require relief and as i do not wish to consult my family already to the feelings of mr i know no one of whom i can better ask advice than my friend and my former you may be aware my dear mr that between myself and mr whom i will never desert there has always been preserved a spirit of mutual confidence mr david may have occasionally given a bill without consulting me or he may have me as to the period when that obligation would due this has actually happened but in general mr has had no secrets from the bosom of affection i allude to his wife and has invariably on our retirement to rest recalled the events of the day you will picture to yourself my dear mr what the of feelings must be when i inform you that fr is entirely changed he is reserved he is secret life is a mystery to the partner of his joys and sorrows i again allude to his wife and if i should assure you that beyond knowing that it is passed fi om morning to night at the office i now know less of it than i do of the man in the south connected with whose mouth the thoughtless children repeat an idle tale respecting cold i should adopt a popular to express an actual fact but this is not all mr is he is severe he is from our eldest son and daughter he has no pride in his he looks with an eye of coldness even on the stranger who last became a member of our circle the pecuniary means of meeting our expenses t down to the utmost are obtained from him with great difficulty and even under fearful threats that he will settle himself the exact expression and he refuses to give any explanation whatever of this policy this is hard to bear this is heart breaking if you will advise me knowing my feeble powers such as they are how you think it will be best to exert them in a so unwonted you will add another friendly obligation to the many you have already rendered me with loves from the children and a smile from tho happily unconscious stranger i remain dear mr your afflicted i did not feel justified in giving a wife of mrs s experience any other recommendation than that she should try to mr by patience and kindness as i knew she would in any case but the letter set me thinking about him very much chapter another once again let me pause upon a memorable period of my life let me stand aside to see the of those days go by me accompanying the shadow of myself in dim procession weeks months seasons pass along they seem little more than a summer day and a winter evening now the common where i walk with is all in bloom a field of bright gold and now the unseen lies in and underneath a covering of snow in a breath the river that flows through our sunday walks is sparkling in the summer sun is ruffled by the winter wind or with drifting heaps of ice faster than ever river ran towards the sea it flashes and rolls away not a thread changes in the house of the two little bird like ladies the clock over the fire place the weather glass hangs in the hall neither clock nor weather glass is ever right but we believe in both devoutly i have come to man s estate i have attained the dignity of twenty one but this is a sort of dignity that may be thrust upon one let me think of what i have achieved i have that savage mystery t make a respectable income by it i am in high for my accomplishment in all to the art and i am joined with eleven others in the in parliament for a morning newspaper night after night i record that never come to pass professions that are never fulfilled explanations that are only meant to i in words that unfortunate female is before me like a fowl and through with office pens and bound hand and foot with red i am sufficiently behind the scenes to know the worth of political hfe i am quite an about it and shall never be converted david my dear old has tried his hand at the same pursuit but it is not in s way he is perfectly good humoured respecting his failure and reminds me that he always did consider himself slow he has occasional employment on the same newspaper in getting up the facts of dry subjects to be written about and by more fertile minds he is called to the bar ana with admirable industry and self denial has scraped another hundred pounds together to fee a whose chambers he a great deal of very hot port wine was consumed at his call and considering the figure i should think the inner temple mast have made a profit by it i h ive come out in another way i have taken with fear and trembling to i wrote a httle something in secret and sent it to a magazine and it was published in the magazine since then i have
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t believe it yet i can t collect myself i can t check off my happiness as it takes place i feel in a misty and unsettled kind of state as if i had got up very early in the morning a week or two ago and had never been to bed since david can t make out when yesterday was i seem to have been carrying the license about in my pocket many mouths next day too when we all go in a flock to see the house our house s and mine i am quite unable to regard myself as its master i seem to be there by permission of somebody else i half expect the real master to come home presently and say he is glad to see me such a beautiful little house as it is with everything so bright and new with the flowers on the carpets looking as if gathered and the green leaves on the paper as if they had just come out with the curtains and the blushing rose coloured furniture and s garden hat with the blue ribbon do i remember now how i loved her in such another hat when i first knew her already hanging on its little the case quite at home on its heels in a corner and everybody tumbling over s which is much too big for the establishment another happy evening quite as unreal as all the rest of it and i steal into the usual room before going away is not there i suppose they have not done trying on yet miss in and tells me mysteriously that she will not be long she is rather long notwithstanding but by and by i hear a rustling at the door and some one i say come in but some one again i go to the door wondering who it is there i meet a pair of bright eyes and a blushing face they are s eyes and face and miss has dressed her in to morrow s dress bonnet and all for me to see i take my little wife to my heart and miss gives a little scream because i tumbled the bonnet and laughs and cries at once because i am so pleased and i believe it less than ever do you think it pretty says pretty i should rather think i did and are you sure you like me very much says the ic is with such danger to the bonnet that miss gives another little scream and me to understand that is to be looked at and on no account to be touched so stands in a delightful state of confusion for a minute or two to be admired and then takes oft her bonnet looking so natural david without it and runs away with it in her hand and comes dancing down again in her own familiar dress and asks if i have got a beautiful little wife and whether he ll forgive her for being married and down to make him stand upon the book for the last time in her single life i go home more incredulous than ever to a lodging that i have hard by and get up very early in the morning to ride to the road and fetch my aunt i have never seen my aunt in such state she is dressed in colored silk and has a white bonnet on and is amazing has dressed her and is there to look at me is ready to go to church intending to behold the ceremony from the gallery mr dick who is to give my darling to me at the altar has had his hair curled whom i have taken up by appointment at the presents a dazzling combination of cream color and light blue and both he and mr dick have a general effect about them of being all gloves no doubt i see this because i know it is so but i am astray and seem to see nothing nor do i believe anything whatever still as we drive along in an open carriage this fairy marriage is real enough to fill me with a sort of wondering pity for the unfortunate people who have no part in it but are sweeping out the shops and going to their daily occupations my aunt sits with my hand in hers all the w ay when we stop a little way short of the church to put down whom we have brought on the box she gives it a squeeze and me a kiss god bless you trot my own boy never could be dearer i think of poor dear baby this morning so do i and of all i owe to you dear aunt tut child says my aunt and gives her hand in overflowing cordiality to who then gives his to mr dick who gives his to me who then gives mine to and then we come to the church door the church is calm enough i am sure but it might be a loom in full action for any effect it has on me i am too far gone for that the rest is all a more or less dream c david a dream of their coming in with of the us like a before the altar rails of my wondering even then why must always be the most disagreeable females and whether there is any dread of a disastrous of good humour which renders it indispensable to set those vessels of upon the road to heaven of the clergyman and clerk appearing of a few and some other people strolling in of ancient behind me strongly the church with rum of the service beginning in a deep voice and our all being very attentive of miss who acts as a semi being the first to cry and of her doing homage as take
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it to the memory of in sobs of miss applying a smelling bottle of taking care of of my aunt endeavouring to represent herself as a model of with tears rolling down her face of little very much and making her in faint whispers of our kneeling down together side by side of s trembling less and less but always cl i by the hand of the service got through quietly and gravely of our all looking at each other in an april state of smiles and tears when it is over of my young wife being hysterical in the and crying for her poor papa her dear papa of her soon cheering up again and our the register al round of my going into the gallery for to bring her to sign it of s me in a corner and telling me she saw my own dear mother married of it s being over and our going away of my walking so proudly and lovingly down the aisle with my sweet wife upon my arm through a mist of half seen people monuments organs and church windows in which there flutter faint airs of association with my childish church at home so ago of their whispering as we pass what a youthful couple we are and what a pretty little wife she is of our all being so merry and in the carriage going back of that when david the saw whom i had with tlie license asked foi it she almost fainted been convinced that he would contrive to lose it or to have his pocket picked of x laughing gaily and of being so fond of that she will not be separated her but still keeps her hand of there being a breakfast witli abundance of things pretty and substantial to eat and drink whereof i partake as i should do in any other dream without the least perception of their flavor eating an i drinking as i may say nothing but love and marriage and n more in the than in else of my making a speech in the same dreamy fashion without having an idea of what i want to say beyond such as may be comprehended in the full conviction that i haven t said it of our being very and simply happy always in a dream though and of s having wedding cake and it s not agreeing with him afterwards of the pair of hired post horses being ready and of s going away to change her dress of my aunt and miss remaining with us and our walking in the garden and my aunt who has made quite a speech at breakfast touching s being amused with herself but a little proud of it too of s being ready and of miss s hovering about her loth to lose the pretty toy that has given her so much pleasant occupation of s making a long series of surprised discoveries that she has forgotten all sorts of little things and of everybody s running everywhere to fetch them of their all closing about when at last she begins to say good bye looking with their bright colors and ribbons hke a bed of flowers of my darling being almost smothered among the flowers and coming out laughing and crying both together to my jealous arms of my wanting to carry who is to go along with us and s saying no that she must carry him or else he ll think she don t like him any more now she is married and will break his heart of our going arm in arm and stopping and looking back and saying if i have ever been cross or ungrateful to any body don t remember it and bursting into tears of her waving her little hand and our going away once more david of her once more stopping and looking back and hurrying to and giving above all the others her last kisses and we drive away together and i awake from the dream i believe it at last it is my dear dear little wife beside me whom i love so well are you happy now you foolish boy says and sure you don t repent i have stood aside to see the of those days go by me they are gone and i resume the journey of my story n v c n i i it il t of ill chapter our housekeeping it was ii strange condition of things the honey moon being over and the gone home when i found myself sitting down in my small house with quite thrown out of employment as may say in respect of the delicious old occupation of love it seemed such an extraordinary thing to have always there it was so unaccountable not to be obliged to go out to see her not to have any occasion to be myself about her not to have to write to her not to be and opportunities of being alone with her sometimes of an evening when i looked up from my writing and saw her seated opposite i would lean back in my chair and think how queer it was that there we were alone together as a matter of course nobody s business any more all the romance of our engagement put away upon a shelf to no one to please but one another one another to please for life when there was a debate and i was kept out very late it seemed so to me as i was home to think that was at home it was such a wonderful thing at first to have her coming softly down to talk to me as i ate my supper it was such a thing to know for certain that she put her hair in papers it was altogether such an astonishing event to see her do it i
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doubt whether two young birds could have known less about keeping house than i and my pretty did we had a servant of course she kept house for us i have still a latent belief that she must have been mrs s daughter in disguise we had such an awful time of it with mary anne her name was her nature was represented to us when v e engaged her as being feebly expressed in her name she had a written character large as a ard to this david document could do everything of a domestic nature that ever i heard of and a great many things that i never did hear of she was a woman in the prime of hfe of a severe countenance and subject in the arms to a sort of perpetual or fiery rash she had a cousin in the life guards with such long legs that he looked hke the afternoon shadow of somebody else was as much too little for him as he was too big for the premises he made the cottage smaller than it need have been by being so very much out of proportion to it besides which the walls were not thick and whenever he passed the evening at house we always knew of it by hearing one continual growl in the kitchen our treasure was sober and honest i am therefore willing to believe that she was in a fit when we found her under the and that the deficient were to the but she upon our minds dreadfully we felt our and were unable to help ourselves we should have been at her mercy if she had any but she was a woman and had none she was the cause of our first httle quarrel my dearest life i said one day to do you think mary anne has any idea of time why inquired looking up innocently from her drawing my love because it s five and we were to have dined at four glanced wistfully at the clock and hinted that she thought it was too fast on the contrary my love said i referring to my watch it s a few minutes oo slow my little came and sat upon my knee to me to be quiet and drew a line with her pencil down the middle of my nose but i couldn t dine off that though it was very agreeable don t you think my dear said i it would be better for you to with mary anne oh no please i couldn t said why not my love i gently asked oh because i am such a little goose said and she knows i am david i thought this sentiment so with the establishment of any system of check on mary anne that i frowned a little oh what ugly wrinkles in my bad boy s forehead said and still being on my knee she traced them with her pencil putting it to her rosy lips to make it mark and working at my forehead with a quaint little mockery of being industrious that quite me in spite of myself there s a good child said it makes its face so much prettier to laugh but my love said i no no please cried with a kiss don t be a naughty blue beard don t be serious my precious wife said i we must be serious sometimes come sit down on this chair close beside me give me the pencil there now let us talk sensibly you know dear what a little hand it was to hold and what a tiny wedding ring it was to see you know my love it is not exactly comfortable to have to go out without one s dinner now is it n n no replied faintly my love how you tremble because t know you re going to me exclaimed in a piteous voice my sweet i am only going to reason oh but reasoning is worse than scolding exclaimed in despair i didn t marry to be reasoned with if you meant to reason with such a poor little thing as i am you ought to have told me so you l boy i tried to but she turned away her face and shook her curls from side to side and said you cruel cruel boy so many times that i really did not exactly know what to do so i took a few turns up and down the room in my uncertainty and came back again my darling no i am not your darling because you must be sorry that you married me or else you wouldn t reason with me returned i felt so injured by the nature of this charge thai it gave me courage to be grave david now my own said i you are very childish and arc talking nonsense you must remember i am sure that i was to go out yesterday when dinner was half over and the day before i was made quite by being obliged to eat in a hurry to day i don t dine at all and i am afraid to say how we waited fur breakfast and then the water didn t boil i don t mean to reproach you my dear this is not comfortable oh you cruel cruel boy to say i am a disagreeable wife cried now my dear you must know that i never said that you said i wasn t comfortable said i said the housekeeping was not comfortable it s exactly the same thing cried and she evidently thought so for she wept most i took another n across the room full of love for my pretty wife and distracted by self inclinations to knock my head against the door i sat down again and said i am not you we have both a great deal to learn i
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am only trying to show you my dear that you must you really must i was resolved not to give this up yourself to look after mary anne likewise to act a little for yourself and me i wonder i do at your making such ungrateful speeches sobbed when you know that the other day when you said you would like a little bit of fish i went out myself miles and miles and ordered it to surprise you and it was very kind of you my own darling said i i felt it so much that i wouldn t on any account hav e even mentioned that you bought a salmon which was too much for two or that it cost one pound six which was more than we can afford you enjoyed it very much sobbed and you said i was a mouse and i ll say so again my love i returned a thousand times but i had wounded s soft little heart and she was not to be comforted she was so pathetic in her sobbing and that i felt as if i had said i don t know what to hurt her i was obliged to hurry away i was kept out late and i felt all night david such pangs of remorse as made me miserable i had the conscience of an and was haunted by a vague sense of enormous wickedness it was two or three hours past midnight when i got home i found my aunt in our house sitting up for me is anything the matter aunt said i alarmed nothing trot she replied sit down sit down little blossom has been rather out of spirits and i have been keeping her company that s all i leaned my head upon my hand and felt more sorry and downcast as t sat looking at the fire than i could have supposed possible so soon after the fulfilment of my brightest hopes as i sat think ing i happened to meet my aunt s eyes which were resting on my face there was an anxious expression in them but it cleared directly i assure you aunt said i i have been quite unhappy myself all night to think of s being so but i had no other intention than to speak to her tenderly and lovingly about our home airs my aunt nodded encouragement you must have patience trot said she of course heaven knows i don t mean to be unreasonable aunt no no said my aunt but little blossom is a very tender little blossom and the wind must be gentle with her i thanked my good aunt in my heart for her tenderness towards my wife and i was sure that she knew i did don t you think aunt said i after some further contemplation of the fire that you could advise and counsel a little for our mutual advantage now and then trot returned my aunt with some emotion no don t ask me such a thing her tone was so very earnest that t raised my eyes in surprise i look back on my life child said my aunt and i think of some who are in their graves with whom i might have been on kinder terms if i judged harshly of other people s mistakes in marriage it may have been because i had bitter reason to judge david harshly of my own let that pass i have been a sort of a woman a good many years i am still and i always shall be but you and i have done one another some good trot at all events you have done me good my dear and division must not come between us at this time of day division between us cried i child child said my aunt her dress how soon it might come between us or how unhappy i might make our little blossom if i in anything a pi couldn t say i want our pet to like me and be as gay as a butterfly remember your own home in that second marriage and never do both me and her the injury you have hinted at i comprehended at once that my aunt was right and i comprehended the full extent of her generous feeling towards my dear wife these are early days trot she pursued and rome was not built in a day nor in a year you have chosen freely for yourself a cloud passed over her face for a moment i thought and you have chosen a very pretty and a very affectionate creature it will be your duty and it will be your pleasure too of course i know that i am not delivering a lecture to estimate her as you chose her by the qualities she has and not by the qualities she may not have the latter you must develop in her if you can and if you cannot child here my aunt rubbed her nose you must just yourself to do without em but remember my dear your future is between you two no one can assist you you are to work it out for yourselves this is marriage trot and heaven bless you both in it for a pair of in the wood as you are my aunt said this in a way and gave me a kiss to the blessing now said she light my httle lantern and see me into my band box by the garden path for there was a tion between our cottages in that direction give s love to blossom when you come back and whatever you do trot never dream of setting up as a for if ever saw her in the glass she s quite grim enough and gaunt enough in her private david with this my tied her head up in a handkerchief with which she
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old friend and made short runs at his plate with such that he may be said to have engrossed the conversation however as i knew how tender hearted my dear was and how sensitive she would be to any slight upon her favorite i hinted no objection for similar reasons i made no allusion to the plates upon the floor or to the appearance of the which were all at and and looked drunk or to the further of by wandering vegetable dishes and i could not help wondering in my own mind i contemplated the boiled leg of mutton before me previous to carving it how it came to pass that our joints of meat were of such extraordinary shapes and whether our butcher contracted for all the sheep that came into the world but i kept my reflections to myself my love said i to what have you got in that dish i could not imagine why a had been making tempting little at me as if she wanted to kiss me dear said timidly david was that your thought said i delighted ye yes said there never was a happier one i exclaimed laying down the carving knife and there is nothing so much ye yes said and so i bought a beautiful little barrel of them and the man said they were very good but i i am afraid there s something the matter with them they don t seem right here shook her head and diamonds in her eyes they are only opened in both shells said i take the top one off my love but it won t come oflf said trying very hard and looking very much distressed do you know said cheerfully examining the dish i think it is in consequence they are capital but i think it is in consequence of their never having been opened they never had been opened and we had no and couldn t have used them if we had so we looked at the and ate the mutton at least we ate as much of it as was done and made up with if i had permitted him i am satisfied that would have made a perfect savage of himself and eaten a of raw meat to express enjoyment of the but i would hear of no such on the altar of friendship and we had a course of bacon instead there happening by good fortune to be cold bacon in the my poor little wife was in such affliction when she thought i should be annoyed and in such a state of joy when she found i was not that the discomfiture i had subdued very soon vanished and we passed a happy evening sitting with her arm on my chair while and i discussed a glass of wine and taking every opportunity of whispering in my ear that it was so good of me not to be a cruel cross old boy by and bye she made tea for us which it was so pretty to see her do as if she were herself with a set of doll s tea things that was not particular about the quality of the then and i played a game or two at and singing to the the while it cr i of the of david seemed to me as if our courtship and marriage were a tender dream of mine and the night when i first to her voice was not yet over when went away and i came back into the parlor fi om seeing him out my wife planted her chair close to mine and sat down by my side i am very sorry she said will you try to teach me i must teach myself first said i i am as bad as you love ah but you can learn she returned and you are a clever clever man nonsense mouse said i i wish resumed my wife after a long silence that i could have gone down into the country for a whole year and lived with her hands were clasped upon my shoulder and her chin rested on them and her blue eyes looked quietly into mine why so i asked i think she might have improved me and i think i might have from said all in good time my love has had her father to take care of for these many years you should remember even when she was quite a child she was the whom we know said i will you call me a name i want you to call me inquired without moving what is it i asked with a smile it s a stupid name she said shaking her curls for a moment child wife i asked my child wife what her fancy was in desiring to be so called she answered without moving otherwise than as the arm i about her may have brought her blue eyes nearer to me i don t mean you silly fellow that you should use the name instead of i only mean that you should think of me that way when you are going to be angry with me say to yourself it s only my child wife when i am very disappointed say i a long time ago that she would make but a child wife david when you miss what t should hke to be and i think can never bay still my foolish child wife loves me for indeed i do i had not been serious with her having no idea until now that she was serious herself but her nature was so happy in what i now said to her with my whole heart that her face became a laughing one before her glittering eyes were dry she was soon my child wife indeed sitting down on the floor outside the chinese house ringing all the little bells one after another
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to punish for his recent bad behaviour while lay in the doorway with his head out even too lazy to be this appeal of s made a strong impression on me i look back on the time i write of i the innocent figure that i dearly loved to come out from the mists and shadows of the past and turn its gentle head towards me once again and i can still declare that this one little speech was constantly in my memory may not have used it to the best account i was young and inexperienced but i never turned a deaf ear to its pleading told me shortly afterwards that she was going to be wonderful housekeeper accordingly she polished the pointed the pencil bought an immense account book carefully up with a needle and thread all the leaves of the book which had torn and made quite a desperate little attempt to be good as she called it but the figures had the old obstinate they would not add up when she had entered two or three laborious in the account book would walk over the page his tail and them all out her own little right hand middle finger got to the very bone in ink and i think that was the only decided result attained sometimes of an evening when i was at home and at work for i wrote a good deal now and was beginning in a small way to be known as a writer i would lay down my pen and watch my trying to be good first of all she would bring out the immense account book and lay it down upon the table with a deep sigh then she would open it at the j lace where had made it last night and call up to look at his this would occasion a diversion in s favour and some of his nose perhaps as a penalty then she would tell to lie down on david the table instantly like a lion which was one of his tricks though i cannot say the likeness was and if he were in an obedient humor he would obey then she would take up a pen and begin to write and find a hair in it then she would take up another pen and begin to write and find that it thee she would take up another pen and begin to write and s n in a low voice oh it s a talking pen and will disturb and then she would give it up as a bad job and put the account book away after pretending to crush the lion with it or if she were in a very and serious state of mind she would sit down with the and a little basket of bills and other documents which looked more like curl papers than anything else and endeavor to get some result out of them after severely comparing one with another and making on the and them out and counting all the fingers of her left hand over and over again backwards and forwards she would be so vexed and discouraged and would look so unhappy that it gave me pain to see her bright face clouded and for me and i would go softly to her and say what s the matter would look up hopelessly and reply they won t come right they make my head ache so and they won t do anything i want then i would say now let us try together let me show you then i would commence a practical demonstration to which would pay profound attention perhaps for five minutes when she would begin to be dreadfully tired and would the subject by curling my hair or the effect of my face with my shirt collar turned down if i checked this and persisted she would look so scared and as she became more and more bewildered that the remembrance of her natural gaiety when i first strayed into her path and of her being my child wife would come reproachfully upon me and i would lay the pencil down and call for the i had a great deal of work to do and had many anxieties but the same considerations made me keep them to i am far from u david sure now that it was right to do this but i did it for my child sake i search my breast and i commit its secrets if i know them without any to this paper the old unhappy loss or want of something had i am conscious some place in my heart but not to the of my life when i walked alone in the fine weather and thought of the summer days when all the had been filled with my boyish enchantment i did miss something of the of my dreams but i thought it was a softened glory of the past which nothing could have thrown upon the present time i did feel sometimes for a little while that i could have wished my wife had been my had had more character and purpose to sustain me and improve me by had been endowed with power to fill up the void which somewhere seemed to be about me but i felt as if this were an of my happiness that never had been meant to be and never could have been i was a boyish husband as to years i had known the softening influence of no other sorrows or experiences than those recorded in these leaves if i did any wrong as i may have done much i did it in mistaken love and in my want of wisdom write the exact truth it would avail me nothing to it now thus it was that i took upon myself the toils and cares of our life and had no partner in them
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we lived much as before in reference to our household arrangements but i had got used to those and i was pleased to see was seldom vexed now she was bright and cheerful in the old childish way loved me dearly and was happy with her old trifles when the were heavy i mean as to length not quality for in the last respect they were not often otherwise and i went home late would never rest when she heard my footsteps but would always come down stairs to meet me when my evenings were by the pursuit for which i had myself with so much pains and i was engaged in writing at home she would sit quietly near me however late the hour and be so mute that i would often think she had dropped asleep but generally when i raise d my head i saw her blue eyes looking at me with the quiet attention of which i have already spoken oh what a weary boy said one night when i met eyes as i was shutting up my desk david what a weary girl said i that s more to the purpose tou must go to bed another time my love it s far too late for j ou no don t send me to bed pleaded coming to my side pray don t do that to my amazement she was sobbing on my neck not well my dear not happy yes quite well and very happy said but let me stop and see you write why what a sight for such bright eyes at midnight i replied are they bright though returned laughing i m so glad they re bright little vanity said i but it was not vanity it was only harmless delight in my admiration knew that very well before she told me so if you think them pretty say i may always stop and see you write said do you think them pretty very pretty then let me always stop and see you write i am afraid that won t improve their brightness yes it will because you clever boy you ll not forget me then while you are full of silent fancies will you mind it if i say something very very silly more than usual inquired peeping over my shoulder into my face what wonderful thing is that said i please let me hold the pens said i want to have something to do with all those many hours when you are so may i hold the pens the remembrance of her pretty joy when i said yes brings tears into my eyes the next time i sat down to write and regularly afterwards she sat in her old place with a spare bundle of pens at her side her triumph in this with my work and her delight when i wanted a new pen which i very often feigned to do suggested to me a new way of pleasing my child wife i occasionally made a pretence of wanting a page or two of manuscript copied then was in her glory the preparations she made david for this great work the she put on the she borrowed from the kitchen to off the ink the time she took the innumerable she made to have a laugh with as if he understood it all her conviction that her work was unless she signed her name at the end and the way in which she would bring it to me like a school copy and then when i praised it clasp me around the neck are touching recollections to me simple as they might appear to other men she took possession of the keys soon after this and went about the house with the whole bunch in a little basket tied to her slender waist i seldom found that the places lo which they belonged were locked or that they were of any use except as a for but was pleased and that pleased me she was quite satisfied that a good deal was effected by this make belief of housekeeping and was as merry as if we had been keeping a baby house for a joke so we went on was hardly less affectionate to my aunt than to me and often told her of the time when she was afraid she was a cross old thing i never saw my aunt more to any one she though never responded listened day after day to the though i am afraid she had no taste for music never attacked the though tho temptation must have been severe went wonderful distances on foot to purchase as surprises any trifles that she found out wanted and never came in by the garden and missed her from the room but she would call out at the foot of the stairs in a voice that sounded cheerfully all over the house where s little blossom chapter mr dick my aunt s it was some time now since t had left the doctor living in bis i saw him frequently and we all went to his on two or three occasions to dinner or tea the old soldier was in permanent quarters under the doctor s roof she was the same as ever and the same immortal hovered over her cap like some other mothers whom i have known in the course of my life mrs was far more fond of pleasure than her daughter was she required a great deal of amusement and hke a deep old soldier pretended in consulting her own to be herself to her child the doctor s desire that should be entertained was therefore particularly acceptable to this excellent parent who expressed approval of his i have no doubt indeed that she the doctor s wound without knowing it meaning nothing but a certain and selfishness not always inseparable from full blown years
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i think she confirmed him in his fear that he was a upon his young wife and that there was no of feeling between them by so strongly his design of the load of her life my dear soul she said to him one day when i was present you know there is no doubt it would be a little for to be always shut up here the doctor nodded his benevolent head when she comes to her mother s ao e said mrs with a flourish of her fan then it ll be another thing you mi put me into a jail with genteel society and a rubber and i should never care to come out but i am not you know and is not her mother david surely surely said the doctor you are the best of creatures no i beg pardon for the tor made a gesture of i must say before your face as i always say behind your back you are the best of creatures but of course you don t now do you enter into the same pursuits and fancies as no said the doctor in a sorrowful tone no of course not retorted the old soldier take your dictionary for example what a useful work a dictionary is what a necessary work the of words without doctor johnson or somebody of that sort we might have been at this present moment calling an italian iron a but we can t expect a dictionary especially when it s making to interest can we the doctor shook his head and that s why i so much approve said mrs tapping him on the shoulder with her shut up fan of your it shows that you don t expect as many elderly people do ex old heads on young shoulders you have studied s character and you understand it what i find so charming even the calm and patient face of doctor strong expressed some little sense of pain i thought under the of these compliments therefore my dear doctor said the soldier giving him several affectionate you may command me at all times and seasons now do understand that i am entirely at your service i am ready to go with to all kinds of places and you shall never find that i am tired duty my dear doctor before every consideration in the universe she was as good as her word she was one of those people who can bear a great deal of pleasure and she never in her perseverance in the cause she seldom got hold of the newspaper which she settled herself down in the chair in the house to read through an every day for two hours but she found out that she was certain would like to see it was in vain for to protest that she was weary of such things her mother s remonstrance always was now my dear i am david sure you know better and i must tell you my love that you are not making a proper return for the kindness of doctor strong this was usually said in the doctor s presence and a to me to constitute s principal for withdrawing her objections when she made any but in general she resigned herself to her mother and went where the old soldier would it rarely happened now that mr accompanied them sometimes my aunt and were invited to do so and accepted the invitation sometimes only was asked the time had been when i should have been uneasy in her going but reflection on what had passed that former night in the doctor s study had made a change in my i believed that the doctor was right and i had no worse suspicions my aunt rubbed her nose sometimes when she happened to be alone with me and said she couldn t make it out she wished they were happier she didn t think our military friend so she always called the old soldier mended the matter at all my aunt further expressed her opinion that if our military friend would cut oflf those and give em to the chimney for may day it would look like the beginning of something sensible on her part but her abiding reliance was on mr dick that man had evidently an idea in his head she said and if he could only once pen it up into a corner which was his great difficulty he would distinguish himself in some extraordinary manner unconscious of this mr dick continued to occupy precisely the same ground in reference to the doctor and to mrs strong he seemed neither to advance nor to he appeared to have settled into his original like a building and i m confess that my faith in his ever moving was not much greater than it he had been a building but one night when i had been married some months mr dick put his head into the parlor where i was writing alone having gone out with my aunt to take tea with the two little birds and said with a you couldn t speak to me without yourself i am afraid david certainly mr dick said i come in trot wood said mr dick laying his finger on the side of his nose after he had shaken hands with me before i sit down i wish to make an observation you know your aunt a little i replied she is the most wonderful woman in the world sir after the delivery of this communication which he shot out of himself as if he were loaded with it mr dick sat down with greater gravity than usual and looked at me now boy said mr dick i am going to put a question to you as many as you please said i what do you consider me sir asked mr dick folding his arms a dear
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the dignity that mingled with the attitude of his wife the amiable concern of mr dick and the earnestness with which my aunt said to herself that man mad triumphantly expressive of the misery from which she had saved him i see and hear rather than remember as i about it doctor i said mr dick what is it that s amiss look here cried the doctor not at my feet my dear yes she said i beg and pray that no one will leave the room oh my husband and father break this long silence let us both know what it is that has come between us mrs by this time the power of speech and seeming to swell with family pride and indignation here exclaimed get up immediately and don t disgrace everybody belonging to you by yourself like that unless you wish to see me go out of my mind on the david returned waste no words on me for my a peal is to husband and even you are nothing here nothing exclaimed mrs am me nothing the child has taken leave of her senses please to get me a glass of water i was too attentive to the doctor and his wife to give any heed to this request and it made no impression on anybody else so mrs panted stared and herself said the doctor tenderly taking her in his hands my dear if any change has come in the of time upon our married hfe you are not to blame the fault is mine and only mine there is no change in my affection admiration and respect i wish to make you happy i truly love and honour you rise pray but she did not rise after looking at him for a little while she sank down closer to him laid her arm across his knee and dropping her head upon it said if i have any friend here who can speak one word for me or for my husband in this matter if i have any friend here who can give a voice to any suspicion that my heart has sometimes whispered to me if i have any friend here who honours my husband or has ever cared for me and has anything within his knowledge no matter what it is that may help to between us i that friend to speak there was a profound silence after a few moments of painful hesitation i broke the silence mrs strong i said there is something within my knowledge which i have been earnestly entreated by doctor strong to conceal and have concealed until to night but i believe the time has come when it would be mistaken faith and delicacy to conceal it any longer and when your appeal me from his she turned her face towards me for a moment and i knew that i was right i could not have resisted its entreaty if the assurance that it gave me had been less convincing our future peace she said may be in your hands i trust it confidently to your not anything i know beforehand that nothing you or any one can tell me will show my l l ll of the t cf david band s noble heart in any other light than one it may seem to you to touch me disregard that i will speak for myself before him and before god afterwards thus earnestly i made no reference to the doctor for his permission but without any other compromise of the truth than a little softening of the of related plainly what had passed in the same room that night the staring of mrs during the whole and the shrill sharp with which she occasionally interrupted it defy description when i had finished remained for some few moments silent with her head bent down as i have described then she took the doctor s hand he was sitting in the same attitude as when we had entered the room and pressed it to her breast and kissed it mr dick softly raised her and she stood when she began to speak leaning on him and looking down upon her husband from whom she never turned her eyes all that has ever been in my mind since i was married she said in a low tender voice i will lay bare before you i could not live and have one knowing what i know now nay said the doctor mildly i have never doubted you my child there is no need indeed there is no need my dear there is great need she answered in the same way that i should open my whole heart before the soul of generosity and truth whom year by year and day by day i have loved and more and more as heaven knows really mrs if i have any discretion at which you haven t you observed my aunt in an indignant whisper i must be permitted to observe that it cannot be requisite to enter into these details no one but my husband can judge of that said without removing her eyes from his face and he will hear me if i say anything to give you pain forgive me i have borne pain first often and long myself david copper field upon my word gasped mrs when i was very young said quite a little child my first associations with knowledge of any kind were inseparable from a patient friend and teacher the friend of my dead father who was always dear to me i can remember nothing that i know without remembering him he stored my mind with its first treasures and his character upon them all they never could have been i think as good as they have been to me if i had taken them from any other hands makes her mother nothing exclaimed mrs not so
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said but i make him what he was i must do that as i grew up he occupied the same place still i was proud of his interest deeply fondly gratefully attached to him i looked up to him i can hardly describe how as a father as a guide as one whose praise was different from all other praise as one in whom i could have trusted and confided if i had doubted all the world you know how young and inexperienced i was when you presented him before me of a sudden as a lover i have mentioned the fact fifty times at least to everybody here said mrs then hold your tongue for the lord s sake and don t mention it any more muttered my aunt it was so great a change so great a loss i felt it at first said still preserving the same look and tone that i was agitated and distressed i was but a girl and when so great a change came in the character in which i had so long looked up to him i think i was sorry but nothing could have made him what he used to be again and i was proud that he should think me so worthy and we were married at saint observed mrs confound the woman said my aunt she be quiet i never thought proceeded with a heightened color of any worldly gain that my husband would bring to me my young heart had no room in its homage for any such poor reference forgive me when i say that it was you who first presented to my mind the thought that any one could wrong me and wrong him by such a cruel suspicion david copper field me cried mrs all you to be sure observed my aunt and you can t fan it away ray military friend it was the first of my life said it was the first occasion of every unhappy moment i have known those moments have been more of late than i can count but not my generous husband not for the reason you suppose for in my heart there is not a ht a recollection or a hope that any power could separate from you she raised her eyes and clasped her hands and looked as beautiful and true i thought as any spirit the doctor looked on her henceforth as as she on him is she went on of having ever urged you for herself and she is in intention every way i am sure but when i saw how many claims that were no claims were pressed upon you in my name how you were on in my name how us you were and how mr who had your welfare very much at heart resented it the first sense of my exposure to the mean suspicion that my tenderness was bought and sold to you of all men on earth fell upon me like disgrace in which i forced you to i cannot tell you what it was cannot imagine what it was to have this dread and trouble always on my mind yet know in my own soul that on my i crowned the love and honor of my life a specimen of the thanks one gets cried mrs in tears for taking care of one s family i wish i was a i wish you were with all my heart and in your native country said my aunt it was at that time that was most about my cousin i had liked him she spoke softly but without any hesitation very much we had been little lovers once if circumstances had not happened otherwise i might have come to myself that i really loved him and might have married him and been most wretched there can be no in marriage like of mind and purpose i pondered on these words even while i was attending to what followed as if they had some particular interest or some david strange application that could not divine there can be no in marriage like of mind and purpose no in marriage like of mind and purpose there is nothing said that we have in common i have long found that there is nothing if i were thankful to my husband for no more instead of for so much i should be thankful to him for having saved me from the first mistaken impulse of my heart she stood quite still before the doctor and spoke with au earnestness that thrilled me yet her voice was just as quiet as before when he was waiting to be the object of your so freely bestowed for my sake and when i was unhappy in the shape i was made to wear t thought it would have become him better to have worked his own way on i thought that if i had been he i would have tried to do it at the cost of almost any hardship but i thought no se of him until the night of his departure for india that night i knew he had a false and heart i saw a double meaning then in mr s scrutiny of me i perceived for the first time the dark suspicion that my life suspicion said the doctor no no no in your mind there was none i know my husband she returned and when i came to you that night to lay down all my load of shame and grief and knew that i had to tell that underneath your roof one of my own kindred to whom you had been a for the love of me had spoken to me words that should have found no utterance even if i had been the weak and wretch he thought me my mind from the taint the very tale conveyed
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it died upon my lips and from that hour till now has never passed them mrs with a short groan leaned back in her easy chair and retired behind her fan as if she were never coming out any more i have never but in your presence a word with him from that time then only when it has been necessary for the of this explanation years have passed since he knew om me what his situation here was the you have david secretly done for his advancement and then disclosed to me for my surprise and pleasure have been you will believe but of the and burden of my secret she sank down gently at the doctor s feet he did his utmost to prevent her and said looking up into his face do not speak to me yet let me say a little more right or wrong if this were to be done again i think i should do just the same you never can know what it was to be devoted to you with those old associations to find that any one could be so hard as to suppose that the truth of my heart was away and to be surrounded by appearances that belief i was very young and had no adviser between and me in all relating to you there was a wide division if i shrunk into myself hiding the i had undergone it was because i honored you so much and so much wished that you should honor me my pure heart said the doctor my dear girl a little more a very few words more i used to think there were so many whom you might have married who would not have ht such and trouble on vou and who would have made your home a home i used to be afraid that i had better have remained your pupil and almost your child i used to fear that i was so to your learning and wisdom if all this made me shrink within myself as indeed it did when i had that to tell it was still because i honored you so much and hoped that you might one day honor me that day has shone this long time said the doctor and can have but one long night my dear another word i afterwards meant meant and to myself to bear the whole weight of knowing the of one to whom you had been so good and now a last word dearest and best of friends the cause of the late change in you which i have seen with so much pain and sorrow and have sometimes referred to my old apprehension at other times to lingering nearer to the truth has been made clear to night and by an accident i have also come to know to night the full measure of your noble trust in me even under that mistake i do not hope that any love and duty i may render in return will ever make me david worthy of your confidence but with all this knowledge fresh upon me i can lift my eyes to this dear face as a father s loved as a husband s sacred to me in my childhood as a friend s and solemnly declare that in my thought i have never wronged you never wavered in the love and i owe vou she had her arms around the doctor s neck and he his head down over her mingling his grey hair with her dark brown oh hold me to your heart my husband never cast me out do not think or speak of between us for there is none except in all my many every succeeding year i have known this better as i have esteemed you more and more oh take me to your heart my husband for my love was founded on a rock and it in the silence that ensued my aunt walked gravely up to mr dick without at all hurrying herself and gave him a and a sounding kiss and it was very fortunate with a view to his credit that she did so for i am confident that i detected him at that moment in the act of making preparations to stand on one leg as an appropriate expression of delight you are a remarkable man dick said my aunt with an air of approbation and never pretend to be anything else for i know better with that my aunt pulled him by the sleeve and nodded to me and we three stole quietly out of the room and came away that s a for our military friend at any rate said my aunt on the way home i should sleep the better for that if there was nothing else to be glad of she was quite overcome i am afraid said mr dick with great what did you ever see a overcome inquired my aunt i don t think i ever saw a returned mr dick mildly there never would have been anything the matter if it hadn t been for that old animal said my aunt with strong emphasis david it s very much to be wished that some mothers would leave their daughters alone after marriage and not be so violently they seem to think the only return that can be made them for bringing an unfortunate young woman into the world god bless my soul as if she asked to be brought or wanted to come is full liberty to worry her out of it again what are you thinking of trot r i was thinking of all that had been said my mind was still running on some of the expressions used there can be no in marriage like of mind and purpose the st mistaken impulse of an heart my love was founded on a rock but we were at
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come here again and returned followed by the respectable mr who with respectability made me a bow and took up his position behind her the air of wicked grace of triumph in which strange to say there was yet something feminine and with which she upon the seat between us and looked at me was worthy of a cruel princess in a legend now said she without glancing at him and touch david ing the old wound as it perhaps in this instance witb pleasure rather than pain tell mr about the flight mr james and myself ma am don t address yourself to me she interrupted with a frown mr james and myself sir nor to me if you please said i mr without being at all signified by a slight that anything that was most agreeable to us was most agreeable to him and began again mr james and myself have been abroad with the young woman ever since she left under mr james s protection we have been in a variety of places and seen a deal of foreign country we have been in france italy in fact almost all parts he looked at the back of the seat as if he were addressing himself to that and softly played upon it with his hands as if he were striking upon a dumb piano mr james took quite uncommonly to the young woman and was more settled for a length of time than i have known him to be since i have been in his service the young woman was very and spoke the languages and wouldn t have been known for the same country person i noticed that she was much admired wherever we went miss put her hand upon her side i saw him steal a glance at her and slightly smile to himself very much admired indeed the young woman was what with her dress what with the air and sun what with being made so much of what with this that and the other her merits really attracted general notice he made a short pause her eyes wandered the distant prospect and she bit her lip to stop that busy mouth taking his hands from the seat and placing one of them within the other ns he settled himself on one leg mr proceeded with his eyes cast down and his respectable head a little advanced and a httle on one side the young woman went on in this manner for some time being david occasionally low in her spirits until i think she began to weary mr james by giving way to her low spirits and of that kind and were not so comfortable mr james he to be restless again the more restless he got the worse she got and i must say for myself that i had a very difficult time of it indeed between the two still matters were patched up here and made good there over and over again and altogether lasted i am sure for a longer time than anybody could have expected recalling her eyes from the distance she looked at me again now with her former air mr clearing his throat behind his hand with a respectable short cough changed legs and went on at last when there had been on the whole a good many words and reproaches mr james he set off one morning from the neighbourhood of where he had a villa the young woman being very partial to the sea and under pretence of coming back in a day or so left it in charge with me to break it out that for the general happiness of all concerned he was here an interruption of the short cough gone but mr james i must say certainly did behave extremely honorable for he proposed that the young woman should marry a very respectable person who was fully prepared to overlook the past and who was at least as good as anybody the young woman could have to in a regular way her being very common he changed legs again and his lips i was convinced that the scoundrel spoke of himself and i saw my conviction reflected in miss s face this i also had it in e to communicate i was to do anything to relieve mr james from his difficulty and to restore harmony between himself and an affectionate parent who has undergone so much on his account therefore i undertook the commission the young woman s violence when she came to after i broke the fact of his departure was beyond all expectations she was quite mad and had to be held by force or if she couldn t have got to a knife or got to the sea she d have beaten her head the marble floor miss leaning back upon the seat with a light of david in her face seemed almost to caress the sounds this fellow had uttered but when i came to the second part of what had been to me said mr rubbing his hands uneasily which anybody might have supposed would have been at all events appreciated as a kind intention then the young woman came out in her true color a more outrageous person i never did see her conduct was bad she had no more gratitude no more no more patience no more reason in her than a stock or a stone if i hadn t been upon my guard i am convinced she would have had my blood i think the better of her for it said i indignantly mr bent his head as much as to say indeed sir but you re young and resumed his narrative it was necessary in short for a time to take away everything nigh her that she could do herself or anybody else an injury with and to shut her up close notwithstanding which she got out in the
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night forced the of a window that i had nailed up myself dropped on a vine that was below and never has been seen or heard of to my knowledge since she is dead perhaps said miss with a smile as if she could have the body of the ruined girl she may have drowned herself miss returned mr catching at an excuse for addressing himself to somebody it s very possible or she may have had assistance from the and the s wives and children being given to low company she was very much in the habit of talking to them on the beach miss and sitting by their boats i have known her do it when mr james has been away whole days mr james was far from pleased to find out once that she had told the children she was a s daughter and that in her own country long ago she had about the beach like them oh unhappy beauty what a picture rose before me of her sitting on the far oflf shore among the children like herself when she was innocent listening to little voices such as have call d her mother had she been a poor man s wife and to the great voice of the sea with its eternal never more david when it was clear that nothing could be done miss did i tell you not to speak to me she said with stern contempt you spoke to me miss he replied i beg your pardon but it s my service to obey do your service she returned finish your story and go when it was he said with infinite respectability and an obedient bow that she was not to be found i went to mr james at the place where it had been agreed that i should write to him and informed him of what had occurred words passed between us in consequence and i felt it due to my character to leave him i could bear and i have borne a great deal from mr james but he insulted me too far he hurt me knowing the unfortunate difference between himself and his mother and what her anxiety of mind was to be i took the liberty of coming home to england and relating for money which i paid him said miss to me just so ma am and relating what i knew i am not aware mr after a moment s reflection that there is anything else i am at present out of employment and should be happy to meet with a respectable situation miss glanced at me as though she would inquire if there were anything that i desired to ask as there was something which had occurred to my mind i said in reply i could wish to from this creature i could not bring myself to utter any more word whether they a letter that was written to her from home or whether he that she received it he remained calm and silent with his eyes fixed on the ground and the tip of every finger of his right hand delicately poised against the tip of every finger of his left miss turned her head towards him i beg your pardon miss he said awakening from his abstraction but however to you i have my position though a servant mr and you miss are different people if mr wishes to know anything from me i take the liberty david of reminding mr tbat he can put a question to me i have a character to maintain after a momentary struggle with myself i turned my eyes upon him and said you have heard my question consider it addressed to yourself if you choose what answer do you make sir he rejoined with an occasional separation and of those delicate tips my answer must be qualified because to betray mr james s confidence to his mother and to betray it to you are two different actions it is not probable i consider that mr james would encourage the receipt of letters likely to increase low spirits and but further than that sir i should wish to avoid going is that all miss of me i indicated that i had nothing more to say except i added as i saw him moving oflf that i understand this fellow s part in the wicked story and that as i shall make it known to the honest man who has been her father from her childhood i would recommend him to avoid going too much into public he had stopped the moment i began and had listened with his usual repose of manner thank you sir but you ll excuse me if i say sir that there are neither slaves nor slave drivers in this country and that people are not allowed to take the law into their own hands if they do it is more to their own peril i believe than to other people s consequently speaking i am not at all afraid of going wherever i may wish sir with that he made me a bow and with another to miss went away through the arch in the wall of by which he had come miss and i regarded each other for a little while in silence her manner being exactly what it was when she had produced the man he says besides she observed with a slow curling of her lip that his master as he hears is spain and this done is away to gratify his tastes till he is weary but that is of no interest to you between these two proud persons mother and son there is a wider breach than before and little hope of its healing for they are one at heart and time makes each more obstinate david and imperious neither is this of any interest to you but it what i wish to
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say this devil whom you make an angel of i mean this low girl whom he picked out of the tide mud with her black eyes full upon me and her passionate finger up may be alive for i some common things ai e hard to die if she is you will desire to have a pearl of such price found and taken care of we desire that too that he may not by any chance be made her prey again so far we are united in one interest and that is why i who would do her any mischief that so coarse a wretch is capable of feeling have sent for you to hear what you have heard i saw by the change in her face that some one was advancing behind me it was mrs who gave me her hand more coldly than of and with an of her former of manner but still i perceived and i was touched by it with an remembrance of my old love for her son she was greatly altered her fine figure v as far less upright her handsome face was deeply marked and her hair was almost white but when she sat down on the seat she was a handsome lady and well i knew the bright eye with its lofty look that had been a light in my very dreams at school is mr informed of everything yes and has he heard himself yes i have told him why you wished it you are a good girl i have had some slight correspondence with your former friend sir addressing me but it not restored his sense of duty or natural obligation therefore i have no other object in this than what has mentioned if by the course which may relieve the mind of the decent man you brought here for whom i am sorry i can say no more my son may be saved from again falling into the of a enemy well she drew herself up and sat looking straight before her far away madam i said respectfully i understand i assure you i am in no danger of putting any strained construction on your motives but i must say even to you having known this injured family from david childhood that if you suppose the girl so deeply has not been cruelly and would not rather die a hundred deaths than take a cup of water from your son s hand now you cherish a terrible mistake well well said mrs as the other was about to it is no matter let it be you are married sir i am told i answered that i had been some time married and are doing well i hear little in the quiet hfe i lead but i understand you are beginning to be famous i have been very fortunate i said and find my name connected with some praise you have no mother in a softened voice no it is a pity she returned she would have been proud of you good i took the hand she held out with a dignified air and it was as calm in mine as if her breast had been at peace her pride could still its very it appeared and draw the placid veil before her face through which she sat looking straight before her on the far distance as i moved away from them along the terrace i could not help observing how steadily they both sat gazing on the prospect and how it and closed around them here and there some early lamps were seen to twinkle in the distant city and in the eastern quarter of the sky the lurid light still hovered but from the greater part of the broad valley interposed a mist was rising like a sea which mingling with the darkness made it seem as if the gathering waters would them i have reason to remember this and think of it with awe for before i looked upon those two again a stormy sea had risen to their feet reflecting on what had been thus told me i felt it right that it should be communicated to mr on the following evening i went into london in quest of him he was always about from place to place with his one object of recovering his niece before him but was more in london than elsewhere often and often now had i seen him in the dead of night passing along the david per field streets searching among the few who out of doors at hours for what he dreaded to find he kept a lodging over the little s shop in market which i have had occasion to mention more than once and from which he first went forth upon his errand of mercy hither i directed my walk on making inquiry for him i learned from the people of the house that he had not gone out yet and i should find him in his room up stairs he was sitting reading by a window in which he kept a few plants the room was very neat and orderly i saw in a moment that it was always kept prepared for her reception and that he never went out but he thought it possible he might bring her home he had not heard my tap at the door and only raised his eyes when i laid my hand upon his shoulder r sir hearty for this visit sit ye down you re kindly welcome sir mr said i taking the chair he handed me don t expect much i have heard some news ly he put his hand in a nervous manner on his mouth and turned pale as he fixed his eyes on mine it gives no clue to where she is but she is not with him he sat down looking intently at me and listened in
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profound silence to all i had to tell i well remember the sense of dignity beauty even with which the patient gravity of his face impressed me when having gradually removed his eyes from mine he sat looking downward leaning his forehead on his hand he no interruption but remained throughout perfectly still he seemed to pursue her figure through the narrative and to let every other shape go by him as if it were nothing when i had done he shaded his face and continued silent i looked out of the window for a little while and occupied myself with the plants how do you fare to feel about it r he inquired at length i think that she is living i replied i t know maybe the first shock was too rough and in david c p p e r f i e l d the of her art tliat there blue water as she used to on could she have o that so many year because it was to be her grave lie said this musing in a low frightened voice and walked across the little room and yet he added r i have felt so sure as she was living i have know d awake and sleeping as it was so that i should find her i have been so led on by it and held up by it that i t believe i can have been deceived no em ly s alive he put his hand down firmly on the table and set his face into a resolute expression my niece em ly is alive sir he said i t know it comes ii om or how tis but am told as she s alive he looked almost like a man inspired as he said it i waited for a few moments until he could give me his attention and then proceeded to explain the precaution that it had ed to me last night it would be wise to take now my dear friend i began kind sir he said grasping my hand in both of his if she should make her way to london which is likely for where could she lose herself so readily as in this vast city and what would she wish to do but lose and hide hei self if she does not go home and she won t go home he interposed shaking his head mournfully if she had left of her own accord she might not as twas sir if she should come here said i i believe there is one person here more likely to discover her than any other in the world do you remember hear what i say with fortitude think of your great object do you remember of our town i needed no other answer than his face do you know that she is in london i have seen her in the streets he answered with a shiver david but you don t know said i that was charitable to her with ham s help long before she fled from home nor that when we met one night and spoke together in the room yonder over the way she listened at the door r he replied in astonishment that night when it so hard that night i have never seen her since i went back after parting from you to speak to her but she was gone i was unwilling to mention her to you then and i am now but she is the person of whom i speak and with whom i think w e should communicate do you understand too well sir he replied we had sunk our voices almost to a whisper and continued to speak in that tone you say you have seen her do you think that you could find her i could only hope to do so by chance i think r i know to look it is dark being together shall we go out now and try to find her to night he assented and prepared to accompany me without appearing to observe what he was doing i saw how carefully he adjusted the little room put a candle ready and the means of it arranged the bed and finally took out of a drawer one of her dresses remembered to have seen her wear it neatly folded with some other garments and a bonnet which he placed upon a chair he made no allusion to these clothes neither did i there they had been waiting for her many and many a night no doubt the time was r he said as we came down stairs when i this girl a most like the dirt underneath my em ly s feet god forgive me there s a difference now as we went along partly to hold him in conversation and partly to satisfy myself i asked him about ham he said almost in the same words as formerly that ham was just the same wearing away his life with no care for t but never murmuring and liked by all i asked him what he thought ham s state of mind was in reference to their misfortunes whether he believed it was dangerous david what lie supposed for example ham would do if he and ever should encounter i t know sir he replied i have of it but i can t myself of it no matters i recalled to his remembrance the morning after her departure when we were all three on the beach do you recollect said t a certain wild way in which he looked out to sea and spoke about the end of it sure i do said he what do you suppose he meant r he replied i ve put the question to myself a o times and never found no answer and s one thing that though he is so pleasant i
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