 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Reading by Nicodemus David Copperfield by Charles Dickens Chapter 59 Return I landed in London on a wintry autumn evening. It was dark and raining, and I saw more fog and mud in a minute than I had seen in a year. I walked from the custom house to the monument before I found a coach, and although the very house fronts, looking on the swollen gutters, were like old friends to me, I could not but admit that they were very dingy friends. I have often remarked, I suppose everybody has, that one's going away from a familiar place would seem to be the signal for change in it. As I looked out of the coach window and observed that an old house on Fish Street Hill, which had stood untouched by painter, carpenter or bricklayer for a century, had been pulled down in my absence, and that a neighbouring street of time honoured and solubility and inconvenience was being drained and widened, I half expected to find St. Paul's Cathedral looking older. For some changes in the fortunes of my friends, I was prepared. My aunt had long been re-established at Dover, and Trattles had begun to get into some little practice at the bar, and the very first term after my departure. He had chambers and grays in, now, and had told me in his last letters that he was not without hopes of being soon united to the dearest girl in the world. They expected me home before Christmas, but had no idea of my returning so soon. I had purposely misled them that I might have the pleasure of taking them by surprise, and yet I was perverse enough to feel a chill and disappointment in receiving no welcome, and rattling alone in silence through the misty streets. The well-known shops, however, with their cheerful lights did something for me, and when I lighted at the door of the Grey's Inn coffee-house, I had recovered my spirits. It recalled at first that so different time when I had put up at the Golden Cross, and reminded me of the changes that had come to pass since then, but that was natural. To you know where Mr. Trattles lives in the inn, I asked the waiter as I warmed myself by the coffee-room fire. Hold-born court, sir, number two. Mr. Trattles has a rising reputation among the lawyers, I believe, said I. Well, sir, returned the waiter. Probably he has, sir, but I am not aware of it myself. This waiter, who was middle-aged and spare, looked for help to a waiter of more authority, a stout potential old man with a double chin and black breeches and stockings, who came out of a place like a church warden's pew at the end of the coffee-room, where he kept company with a cash-box, a directory, a law-list, and other books and papers. Mr. Trattles said the spare waiter, number two in the court. The potential waiter waved him away and turned gravely to me. I was inquiring, said I, whether Mr. Trattles, at number two in the court, has not a rising reputation among the lawyers. Never heard his name, said the waiter, in a rich husky voice. I felt quite apologetic for Trattles. He's a young man, sure, said the pretentious waiter, fixing his eyes severely on me. How long has he been in the inn? Not above three years, said I. The waiter, who I supposed had lived in his church warden's pew for forty years, could not pursue such an insignificant subject. He asked me what I would have for dinner. I felt I was in England again, and really was quite cast down on Trattles' account. There seemed to be no hope for him. I meekly ordered a bit of fish and a steak, and stood before the fire, musing on his obscurity. As I followed the chief waiter with my eyes, I could not help thinking that the garden, in which he had gradually blown to be the flower he was, was an arduous place to rise in. It had such a prescriptive, stiff-necked, long-established, solemn, elderly air. I glanced about the room which had had its sanded floor sanded, 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 unruffled depths of old mahogany, and the lamps without a flaw in their trimming or cleaning. And at the comfortable green curtains with their pure brass rods, snugly enclosing the boxes. On at the two large coal fires, brightly burning. And at the rows of decanters, burly 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 bedroom to change my wet clothes, and the vast extent of that old wanes-coated apartment, which was over the archway leading to the inn, I remember. And the sedate immensity of the four-posts bedstead, and the indomitable gravity of the chest of drawers, all seemed to unite in sternly frowning on the fortunes of travels, 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 vacation not yet being over, were eloquent on the audacity of travels, and his small hopes of livelihood 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 Gators, 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 conveyancer living in the square, and worth a mint of money, which it was expected he would leave to his laundress' daughter. Likewise that it was rumored that he had a service of plate in a bureau, all tarnished with lying by, though more than one spoon in a fork had never yet been beheld in his chambers by mortal vision. By this time I quite gave trattles 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 dispatched 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. Trattles 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 wick, dying away in a little dungeon of dirty glass. In the course of my stumbling upstairs I fancied I heard a pleasant sound of laughter, and not the laughter of an attorney or barrister, or attorney's clerk or barrister's clerk, but of two or three merry grills. Happening, however, as I stopped to listen, to put my foot in a hole where the honorable society of Grey'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. Trattles painted on it, open. I knocked, a considerable scuffling within ensued, but nothing else, I therefore knocked again. A small, sharp-looking lad, half-footboy and half-clerk, who was very much out of breath, but who looked at me as if he defied me to prove it legally, presented himself. Is Mr. Trattles within, I said? 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 Trattles looking up at Copperfield, and rushed into my arms where I held him tight. All well, my dear Trattles? All well, my dear, dear Copperfield, and nothing but good news. We cried with pleasure both of us. My dear fellow said Trattles, rumbling his hair and his excitement, which was a most unnecessary operation. My dearest Copperfield, 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 have never was so rejoiced, my beloved Copperfield, never. I was equally at a loss to express my emotions. I was quite unable to speak at first. My dear fellow said Trattles, and grown so famous, my glorious Copperfield, 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, Trattles, who had clapped me into an easy chair by the fire, all this time impetuously stirred the fire with one hand, and pulled at my neckerchief with the other, under some wild delusion that it was a great coat. Without putting down the poker, he now hugged me again, and I hugged him, and both laughing and both wiping our eyes, we both sat down and shook hands across the hearth. To think, said Trattles, 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 Trattles? Good gracious me, cried Trattles, opening his eyes in his old way. Didn't you get my last letter? Certainly not, if it referred to any ceremony. Why, my dear Copperfield, said Trattles, 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 Trattles, by the Reverend Horace, to Sophie, down in Devonshire. 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 Trattles, what a delightful reunion this is. You are so extremely brown, my dear Copperfield. 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 Sophie. We are all as happy as possible, said Trattles. Even the girls are happy. Dear me, I declare I forgot them. Forgot, said I. The girls, said Trattles, Sophie's sisters. They are staying with us. They have come to have a peep at London. The fact is, when—was it you that tumbled upstairs, Copperfield? It was, said I, laughing. Well, then, when you tumbled upstairs, said Trattles, I was romping with the girls. In point of fact, we were playing it puss 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 client, they decamped. And they are now listening, I have no doubt, said Trattles, glancing at the door of another room. I am sorry, said I, laughing afresh, to have occasioned such a dispersion. Upon my word rejoined Trattles, greatly delighted. If you had seen them running away and running back again after you had knocked to pick up the combs they had dropped out of their hair and going on in the maddest manner, you wouldn't have said so. My love, will you fetch the girls? Sophie tripped away, and we heard her received in the adjoining room with a peel of laughter. Really musical, isn't it, my dear Copperfield? said Trattles. It's very agreeable to hear. 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 haven't had a great loss in Sophie, who I do assure you, Copperfield, is, and ever was, the dearest girl. And it gratifies me beyond expression to find them in such good spirits. The society of girls is a very delightful thing, Copperfield. It's not professional, but it's very delightful. Observing that he's slightly faltered and comprehending that in the goodness of his heart he was fearful of giving me some pain by what he had said, I expressed my concurrence with the hardiness that evidently relieved and pleased him greatly. But then, said Trattles, our domestic arrangements are, to say the truth, quite unprofessional altogether, my dear Copperfield. Even Sophie's being here is unprofessional. And we have no other place of abode. We have put to sea in a cock boat, but we are quite prepared to rough it. And Sophie's an extraordinary manager. You'll be surprised how those girls are stowed away. I'm 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 Trattles in a low, confidential voice. Caroline. And Sarah's here, the one I mentioned to you, is having something the matter with her spine, you know. Immensely better, and the two youngest that Sophie educated are with us. And Louise is here. Indeed, cried I. Yes, said Trattles. Now the whole set, I mean the chambers, is only three rooms, but Sophie arranges for the girls in the most wonderful way, and they sleep as comfortably as possible. Three in that room, said Trattles, pointing. Two in that. I could not help glancing round in search of the accommodation remaining for Mr. and Mrs. Trattles. Trattles understood me. Well, said Trattles, we are prepared to rough it, as I just said now, and we did improvise 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 Sophie prepared herself to surprise me. And that's our room at present. It's a capital little gypsy sort of place. There's quite a view from it. And are you happily married at last, my dear Trattles? said I. How rejoiced I am. Thank you, my dear Copperfield, said Trattles, 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 Trattles, nodding triumphantly at the flower pot and stand. And there's the table with the marble top, and the other furniture is plain and serviceable, you perceive. And as to plate, Lord bless you, we haven't so much as a teaspoon. All to be earned, said I cheerfully. Exactly so, replied Trattles, all to be earned. Of course we have something in the shape of teaspoons because we stir our tea. But they're Britannia metal. The silver will be the brighter when it comes, said I. The very thing we say, cried Trattles, you see, my dear Copperfield, falling again into the low confidential tone, after I had delivered my argument in dough-dem. Gypes versus Wigsile, which did me great service with the profession, I went down into Devonshire and had some serious conversation in private with the Reverend Horace. I dwelt upon the fact that Sophie, who I do assure you, Copperfield, is the dearest girl. I'm certain she is, said I. She is indeed, rejoined Trattles. But I am afraid I am wandering from the subject. Did I mention the Reverend Horace? You said that you dwelt upon the fact. True, upon the fact that Sophie and I had been engaged for a long period, and that Sophie, with the permission of her parents, was more than content to take me, in short, said Trattles, with his old frank smile, on our present Britannia metal footing. Very well. I then proposed to the Reverend Horace, who is a most excellent clergyman, Copperfield, and ought to be a bishop, or at least ought to have enough to live upon without pinching 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 like this besides, then, and in that case, Sophie 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 Sophie's being extraordinarily 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, Copperfield, rejoined Trattles, because without any imputation on the Reverend Horace, 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 referred to the Reverend Horace. I understand, said I. Or to Miss Cruller, 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 Miss Cruller to this arrangement. They had a dreadful time of it with her. It mounted from her legs into her chest and then into her head. What mounted, I asked. Her grief, replied Trattles. 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 harass 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 unremitting and affectionate attention, and we were married yesterday six weeks. You have no idea what a monster I felt, Copperfield, when I saw the whole family crying and fainting away in every direction. Miss Cruller couldn't see me before we left. Couldn't forgive me then for depriving 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 blessed as you deserve to feel. Oh, that's your partiality, laughed Trattles, but indeed I am in a most enviable state. I work hard and read law insatiably. I get up at five every morning and don't mind it at all. I hide the girls in the daytime 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 Michael Ness term. But here, said Trattles, breaking off in his confidence and speaking aloud, are the girls, Mr. Copperfield, Miss Cruller, Miss Sarah, Miss Louisa, Margaret, and Lucy. They were a perfect nest of roses. They looked so wholesome and fresh. They were all pretty and Miss Caroline was very handsome. But there was a loving, cheerful fireside quality in Sophie'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 divine 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. Miss Trattles, 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 Agnes. She told me while she was toasting. Tom had taken her down into Kent for a wedding trip, and there she had seen my aunt, too, and both my aunt and Agnes 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 pedestal 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 Trattles 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 Trattles ever for an instant missed the teaspoons 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 anyone, I am satisfied it could only have been because she was the beauty's sister. A few slight indications of a rather petted and capricious manner, which I observed in the beauty, were manifestly considered by Trattles and his wife as her birthright and natural endowment. 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 whims was the pleasantest little testimony to their own worth I could have desired to see. If Trattles were addressed as a darling once in the course of that evening and besought to bring something here or carry something there 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 Sophie. Somebody's hair fell down and nobody but Sophie could put it up. Somebody forgot how a particular tune went and nobody but Sophie could hum that tune right. Somebody wanted to recall the name of a place in Devonshire and only Sophie knew it. Something was wanted to be written home and Sophie alone could be trusted to write before breakfast in the morning. Somebody broke down in a piece of knitting and no one but Sophie was able to put the defaulter in the right direction. There were entire mistresses of the place and Sophie and Trattles waited on them. How many children Sophie 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 dozens to order with the clearest 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 exactions all the sisters had a great tenderness and respect both for Sophie and Trattles. I am sure when I took my leave and Trattles 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 the Trattles good night. If I had beheld a thousand roses blowing in a top set of chambers and that withered rays in, they could not have brightened it half so much. The idea of those Devonshire girls among the dry law stationers in the attorney's offices and of the tea and toast and children's songs and that grim atmosphere of pounce and parchment, red tape, dusty wafers, ink jars, brief and draft paper, law reports, writs, declarations and bills of cost seemed almost as pleasantly fanciful as if I had dreamed that the sultan's famous family had been admitted on the role of attorneys and had brought the talking bird, the singing tree and the golden water into Grey's Inn Hall. Somehow I found that I had taken leave of Trattles 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 waiters 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 vicissitudes and separations 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 crumbled into hoary ashes and mingled with the feathery heap upon the hearth which not in aptly 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 I might have inspired a dearer love I had taught to be my sister. She would marry and would have new claimants on her tenderness and in doing it would never know the love for her that had grown up in my heart. It was right that I should pay the forfeit of my headlong passion. What I reaped I had sown. I was thinking and had I truly disciplined 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 continence that might have arisen out of the fire in its association with my early remembrances. Little Mr. Chillop, 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 warned 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. Chillop had left Blunderstone six or seven years ago and I have never seen him since. He sat placidly perusing the newspaper with his little head on one side and a glass of warm sherry-niggas at his elbow. He was so extremely conciliatory in his manner that he seemed to apologize 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. Chillop? 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, I said I. Well, sir, returned Mr. Chillop, smiling very meekly and shaking his head as he surveyed me. I have a kind of impression that something in your continence 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. Chillop? It is possible that I had the honour, sir, of officiating when, Yes, I said, dear me, cried Mr. Chillop. But no doubt you were a good deal changed since then, sir. Probably, said I. Well, sir, observed Mr. Chillop, I hope you'll excuse me if I am compelled to ask the favour 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 tepid little fish slice an inch or two in advance of his hip and events the greatest discomposure when anybody grappled with it. Even now he put his hand in his coat pocket as soon as he could disengage it and seemed relieved when he had got it safe back. Dear me, sir, said Mr. Chillop, surveying me with his head on one side, and its Mr. Copperfield, is it? Well, sir, I think I should have known you if I had taken the liberty of looking more closely at you. There is 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. Chillop in a soothing tone, and very much to be deplored it was on all accounts. We are not ignorant, sir, said Mr. Chillop, 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. Chillop, tapping himself on the forehead with his finger. You must find it a trying occupation, sir. What is your part of the country now? I asked, seating myself near him. I am established within a few miles of Burri St. Edmunds, sir, said Mr. Chillop. Mrs. Chillop, coming into a little property in that neighborhood under her father's will, I bought a practice down there in which you will be glad to hear I'm doing well. My daughter is growing quite tall last now, sir, said Mr. Chillop, giving his little head another little shake. Her mother let down two tucks in her frocks 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 refilled, 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 put yesterday that I had the honor of attending you and the measles. You came through them charmingly, sir. I acknowledged this compliment and ordered the negus, which was soon produced. Quite an uncommon dissipation, said Mr. Chillop, 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 bereavement, sir, some time ago, said Mr. Chillop. 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. Chillop? Are you not aware, sir, returned Mr. Chillop with his placidest smile, that your father-in-law is again a neighbor of mine? No, said I. He is indeed, sir, said Mr. Chillop, 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 fatigued, said Mr. Chillop, looking at me like an admiring robin? I waved that question and returned to the Mirdstons. I was aware of his being married again. Do you attend the family, I asked. Not regularly, I have been called in, he replied. Strong, phrenological developments of the organ of firmness in Mr. Mirdston and his sister, sir. I replied with such an expressive look that Mr. Chillop was emboldened by that and the nagas together to give his head several short shakes and thoughtfully exclaim, Ah, dear me, we remember old times, Mr. Copperfield. And the brother and sister are pursuing their old course, are they, said I. The brother replied Mr. Chillop, a medical man being so much in families, ought to have neither eyes nor ears for anything but his profession. Still I must say, they are very severe, sir, both to this life and the next. The next will be regulated without much reference to them, I daresay, I returned. What are they doing as to this? Mr. Chillop shook his head, stirred his nagas, and sipped it. She was a charming woman, sir, he observed in a plaintive manner. The present, Miss Mirdston? A charming woman indeed, sir, said Mr. Chillop. As amiable, I am sure, as it was possible to be. Mrs. Chillop'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. Chillop, timorously, are great observers, sir. I suppose she was to be subdued and broken to their detestable mould, heaven-helper, said I, and she has been. Well, sir, there were violent quarrels at first, said Mr. Chillop, 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 imbecility? I told him I could easily believe it. I have no hesitation in saying, said Mr. Chillop, fortifying himself with another sip of nagas, between you and me, sir, that her mother died of it, or that tyranny, gloom, and worry that Mrs. Mergedon nearly imbecile. She was a lively young woman, sir, before marriage, and their gloom and austerity destroyed her. They go about with her now, more like her keepers than her husband and sister-in-law. That was Mrs. Chillop's remark to me, only last week, and I assure you, sir, the ladies are great observers. Mrs. Chillop 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. Chillop, his eyelids getting quite red with the unwanted stimulus in which he was indulging. One of Mrs. Chillop's most impressive remarks. Mrs. Chillop, he proceeded in the calmest and slowest manner, quite electrified me by pointing out that Mr. Mergedon sets up an image of himself and calls it the Divine Nature. You might have knocked me down on the flat of my back, sir, with the feather of a pin, I assure you, when Mrs. Chillop said so. The ladies are great observers, sir. Intuitively, 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. Mergedon delivers public addresses sometimes, and it is said, in short, sir, it is said by Mrs. Chillop, that the darker tyrant he has lately been, the more ferocious is his doctrine. I believe Mrs. Chillop to be perfectly right, said I. Mrs. Chillop does go so far as to say, pursued the meekest of little men, much encouraged, that what such people miscall their religion is a vent for their bad humours and arrogance. And, you know, I must say, sir, he continued mildly laying his head on one side, that I don't find authority for Mr. and Mrs. Mergedon in the New Testament. I never found it either, said I. In the meantime, sir, said Mr. Chillop, they are much disliked, and as they are very free and consigning everybody who dislikes them to perdition, we really have a good deal of perdition going on in our neighbourhood. However, as Mrs. Chillop says, 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. Chillop's own brain, under his potations of negus, to divert his attention from this topic to his own affairs, on which for the next half hour he was quite loquacious, giving me to understand, among other pieces of information, that he was then at the Grey's Inn coffee-house to lay his professional evidence before a commission of lunacy, touching the state of mind of a patient who had become deranged from excessive drinking. And I assure you, sir, said he, I am extremely nervous on such occasions, I could not support being what is called bullied, sir. It would quite unmanned me. Do you know it was some time before I recovered the conduct of that alarming lady on the night of your birth, Mr. Copperfield? I told him that I was going down to my aunt, the dragon of that night, early in the morning, and that she was one of the most tender-hearted 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 terrify him. He replied with a small pale smile. Is she so indeed, sir, really, and almost immediately called for a candle and went to bed, as if he were not quite safe anywhere else? He did not actually stagger under the nagus, 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, past the next day on the Dover-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 Pagati, who acted as housekeeper, with open arms and tears of joy. My aunt was mightily amused when we began to talk, composedly, by my account of my meeting with Mr. Chilip and of his holding her in such dread remembrance, and both she and Pagati had a great deal to say about my poor mother's second husband, and that murdering 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 designation. End of Chapter 59 of David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. Read by Nicodemus. Chapter 60 of David Copperfield This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. Chapter 60 Agnes My aunt and I, when we were left alone, talked far into the night. How the immigrants never wrote home, otherwise and cheerfully and hopefully. How Mr. McCobber had actually remitted diverse small sums of money on account of those pecuniary liabilities in reference to which he had been so business-like as between man and man. How Janet, returning into my aunt's service when she came back to Dover, had finally carried out her renunciation of mankind by entering into wedlock with a thriving tavern-keeper. And how my aunt had finally set her seal on the same great principle by aiding and abetting 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 copying everything he could lay his hands on and kept King Charles I at a respectful 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 pining in the naughtiness 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 her old way before the fire, when are you going over to Canterbury? I shall get a horse and ride over to-morrow morning, aunt, unless you will go with me. No, said my aunt in a short abrupt way. I mean to stay where I am. Then I should ride, I said. I could not have come through Canterbury today without stopping if I had been coming to any one but her. She was pleased, but answered. 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 more and so near Agnes without the revival of those regrets with which I had so long been occupied, softened the regrets there might be, teaching me what I had failed to learn with my younger life was all before me, but not the last regrets. Oh, Trot! I seemed to hear my aunt say once more and I understood her better now. Blind, blind, blind. They 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, willful as it had been once. You will find her father a white-haired old man, said my aunt, though a better man in all other respects, a reclaimed man. Neither will you find him measuring all human interests and joys and sorrows with his one poor little intro 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 deutiful, 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. Oh, 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 and useful and happy? Has Agnes any? I was thinking aloud rather than speaking. Well, hey, any what? said my aunt sharply. Any lover, said I. As core 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? Agnes could care for no other. My aunt sat amusing 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 conflicts 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 currently. 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. Agnes 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, 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-so looking on her face again. The well-remembered ground was so traversed and I came into the quiet streets where every stone was a boy's book to me. I went unfooted 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 torrent-room where first Yuri Ahid and afterwards Mr. McCobber had been wont to sit saw that it was a little parlor now and that there was no office. Otherwise this state-old house was, as to its cleanliness and order, still just as it had been when I first saw it. I requested the no maid who admitted me to tell Ms. Wickfield that a gentleman who waited on her from a friend abroad was there. And I was shown up the grave-old staircase cautioned at the steps I knew so well into the unchanged drawing-room. The books that Agnes and I had read together were on their shelves and the desk where I had labored at my lessons many a night so jet at the same old corner of the table. All the little changes that had crept in when the heaps were there were changed again. Everything was as it used to be in the happy time. I stood in the window and looked across the ancient street at the opposite houses recalling how I had watched them on wet afternoons when I first came there and how I had used to speculate about the people who appeared at any of the windows and had followed them with my eyes up and downstairs while women went clicking along the pavement in patterns and the dull rain fell in slanting lines and poured out of the water-spout yonder and flowed into the road. The feeling with which I used to watch the tramps as they came into the town on those wet evenings at dusk and limped past with their bundles drooping over their shoulders at the ends of sticks came freshly back to me fraught as then with the smell of damp earth and wet leaves and briar and the sensation of the very airs that blew upon me in my own toilsome journey. The opening of the little door in the paneled 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 it caught her in my arms. Agnes, my dear girl, I have come too suddenly upon you. No, no, I am sorry choice to see you, Trotwood. Dear Agnes, 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 while my efforts were in vain. My love and joy were dumb. With her own sweet tranquillity she calmed my agitation. Led me back to the time of our parting, spoke to me of Emily, whom she had visited in secret many times, spoke to me tenderly of Dora's grave. With the unerring instinct of her noble heart she touched chords of my memory so softly and harmoniously that not one jarred within me I could listen to the sorrowful distant music and desire to shrink from nothing at a walk. How could I, when blended with it all, was her dear self the better angel of my life? And you, Agnes, 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 a radiant smile. Papa is well. You see is here quite in her own house. Our anxiety set at rest. Our home restored to us. And knowing that, dear Trotwood, you know all. All, Agnes, 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 the quiet sadness I thought and shook her head. I had sought to lead her to what my aunt had hinted at. Or 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 Agnes? 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 curiously 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 Agnes 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, but I would pass the day there joyfully. I must be a prisoner for a little while, said Agnes. But here are the old books, Tropwood, and the old music. Even the old flowers are here, said I, looking round. Or the old kinds. I have found a pleasure, returned Agnes, smiling, while you have been absent, in keeping everything as it used to be when we were children, for we were very happy then, I think. Heaven knows we were, said I. And every little thing that has reminded me of my brother, Agnes, 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 jingle 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 the sisterly 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, the 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 behoved me never to forget it. I walked through the streets, and, once more seeing my old adversary, the butcher, now a constable, with his taff hanging up in the shop, went down to look at the place where I had fought him. And there meditated on Miss Shephard and the eldest Miss Larkins, and all the idle loves and likings and dislikings of that time. Nothing seemed to have survived that time but agnus, and she, ever a star above me, was brighter and higher. When I returned, it was her weak field that had come home, from a garden he had a couple of miles or so out of 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 afold to that quiet ground in my memory pervaded it again. The dinner was done, with the weak field taking no wine, and I desiring none, we went upstairs, where agnus and her little charges sang and played and worked. After tea the children left us, and we three sat together, talking of the bygone days. My part in them, said Mr. weak field shaking his white head, has much matter for regret, for deep regret, and deep contretian job would you well know, but I would not cancel it, if it were in my power. I could readily believe that, looking at the face beside him. I should cancel 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, I returned, how much she has done, how much she has undergone, how hard she has driven, dear agnus. She had put her hand entreatingly on his arm to stop him, and was very, very pale. Well, well, he said with a sigh, dismissing, as I then saw, some trial she had borne, or was yet to bear, in connection with what my aunt had told me. Well, I had never told you, Trotwood, of her mother, has anyone? Never sir. It's not much, though it was much to suffer. She married me in opposition to her father's wish, and he renounced her. She prayed him to forgive her, before my agnus came into this world. He was a very hard man, and her mother had long been dead. He repulsed her, he broke her heart. Agnus 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 repulse, for it was not the first, by many, pined away and died. She left me agnus, two weeks old, and the gray hair that you recollect me with when you first came. He kissed agnus on her cheek. My love for my dear child was a diseased love, but my mind was all unhealthy then. I say no more of that. I am not speaking of myself, Totwood, but of her mother and of her. If I give you any clue to what I am, or to what I have been, you will unravel it, I know. What agnus is, I need not say. I have always read something of her poor mother's story in her character, and so I tell it to you tonight, 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 reunion, I should have found it in this. Agnus rose up from her father's side before long, and going softly to her piano played some of the old days to which we had often listened in that place. Have you any intention of going away again? Agnus asked me, as I was standing by. What does my sister say to that? I hope not. Then I have no such intention, Agnus. I think you ought not, Totwood, since you asked me, she said mildly, yet growing reputation and success enlarge your power of doing good. And if I could spare my brother with her eyes upon me, perhaps the time could not. What I am, you have made me, Agnus. You should know best. I made you, Totwood? Yes, Agnus, my dear girl. I said, bending over her. I tried to tell you when we met today something that has been in my thoughts since Dora died. You remember when you came down to me oh, Totwood, 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, Agnus, ever leading me to something better, ever directing me to higher things. She only shook her head. Through the tears I saw the same sad, quiet smile. And I am so grateful to you for it, Agnus, 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 has passed. Whatever betides, 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 for tonight, Agnus? 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, Agnus, I knew, almost as if I had known this story, that there was something inexplicably gentle and softened surrounding you, something that might have been sorrowful in someone 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 cherishing such fancy, Agnus? No. Or at my saying that I really believe I felt, even then, that you could be facefully affectionate against all discouragement and never cease to be so, until you cease to live. Will you laugh at such a dream? Oh, no! Oh, no! For an instant a distressed 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. I 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 to earth and tell her what this trifle had been within me when I loved her here. End of chapter 60 Chapter 61 of David Copperfield This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Simon Evers David Copperfield Chapter 61 Chapter 61 I am shown two interesting penitents. 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 Dover and there, sitting in the window from which I had looked out of the moon upon the sea when that roof first gave me shelter I quietly pursued my task. In pursuance of my intention of referring to my own fictions 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 Traddles on some business point. He had managed for me in my absence with the soundest judgment and my worldly affairs were prospering. As my notoriety 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 with Traddles to have my name painted up on his door. There the devoted postman on that beat delivered bushels of letters for me and there at intervals I laboured through them like a home secretary of state without the salary. Among this correspondence there dropped in every now and then an obliging proposal from one of the numerous outsiders always lurking about the commons to practice under cover of my name if I would take the necessary steps remaining to make a proctor of myself and pay me a percentage on the profits. But I declined these offers being already aware that there were plenty of such covered practitioners in existence and considering the commons quite bad enough without me doing anything to make it worse. The girls had gone home when my name burst into bloom on Traddles's door and the sharper boy looked all day as if he had never heard of Sophie shut up in a back room glancing down from her work into a sooty little strip of garden with a pump in it. But there I always found her the same bright housewife often humming her Devonshire ballads when no strange foot was coming up the stairs and blunting the sharper boy in his official closet with melody. I wondered at first why I so often found Sophie writing in a copy book and why she always shut it up in a little drawer. But the secret soon came out. One day Traddles who had just come home through the drizzling sleet from court took a paper out of his desk and asked me what I thought of that handwriting. Oh, don't Tom!" cried Sophie 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 Copperfield? I was wrongly 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 Traddles. A lady's, I repeated. Bricks and mortar are more like a lady's hand. Traddles broke into a rapturous laugh and informed me that it was Sophie's writing that Sophie had vowed and declared he would need a copying 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 folios and hour. Sophie 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, avering that he should always be equally proud of it under all circumstances. What a thoroughly good and charming wife she is, my dear Traddles, said I, when she had gone away laughing. My dear Copperfield! returned Traddles. She is, without any exception, the dearest girl. The way she manages this place her punctuality, domestic knowledge, economy and order, that cheerfulness, Copperfield. 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'm sure we are two of the happiest people, returned Traddles. It is a pity we have such little events. Nest my soul, when I see her getting up by candlelight on these dark mornings busying herself in the day's arrangements, going out to market before the clerks come into the inn, caring for no weather, devising the most capital-little dinners out of the plainest materials, making puddings and pies, keeping everything in its right place, always so neat and ornamental herself, sitting up at night with me, I positively sometimes can't believe it, Copperfield." He was tender, of the very slippers she had been warming, as he put them on and stretched his feet enjoyingly upon the fender. "'I positively sometimes can't believe it,' said Traddles. "'Then our pleasures! Dear me, they are inexpensive, but they are quite wonderful! When we are at home here of an evening and shut the outer door and draw those curtains, which she made, where could we be more snug? Then it's fine, and we go out for a walk in the evening. The streets abound in enjoyment for us. We look into the glittering windows of the jeweler's shops, and I show Sophie which of the dam-and-eyed serfants coiled up on white-satting rising grounds I would give her if I could afford it. And Sophie shows me which of the girl watches that a captain dueled an engine turned and possessed of the horizontal lever escape movement, and all sorts of things she would buy for me if she could afford it. And we pick out the spoons and forks, fish-slices, butter-dives, and sugar-tongs. We should both prefer if we could both afford it, and really we go away as if we got them. Then when we stroll into the squares and great streets and see a house to let, sometimes we look up at it and say, How would that do if I was made a judge? And we parcel it out, such a room for us, such rooms for the girls, and so forth, until we settle to our satisfaction that it would do or it wouldn't do as the case may be. Sometimes we go at half price to the pit of the theatre, the very smell of which is cheap in my opinion at the money, and there we thoroughly enjoy the play which Sophie believes every word of, and so do I. In walking home, perhaps we buy a little bit of something at a cook's shop or a little lobster at the fish-mongers, and bring it here and make a splendid supper chatting about what we've seen. Now you know, Copperfield, if I was Lord Chancellor, we couldn't do this. You would do something, whatever you were, my dear Traddles, thought I, that would be pleasant and amable. And by the way, I said aloud, I suppose you never draw any skeletons now." Really! replied Traddles, laughing and reddening. I can't wholly deny that I do, my dear Copperfield. For being in one of the back rows of the King's bench the other day, with a pen in my hand, the fancy came into my head to try how I had preserved that accomplishment. And I'm afraid there's a skeleton in a wig on the ledge of the desk. After we have both laughed heartily, Traddles wound up by looking with a smile at the fire and saying in his forgiving way, Old creakle! I have a letter from that old rascal here, said I. For I never was less disposed to forgive him the way he used to batter Traddles than when I saw Traddles so ready to forgive him himself. From creakle the schoolmaster exclaimed Traddles, No! Among the persons who are attracted to me in my rising fame and fortune, said I, looking over my letters, and who discover that they were always much attached to me, is the self-same creakle. He's not a schoolmaster now, Traddles. He's retired. He's a Middlesex magistrate. I thought Traddles might be surprised to hear it, but he was not so at all. How do you suppose he comes to be a Middlesex magistrate, said I? Oh, dear me, replied Traddles, it would be very difficult to answer that question. Perhaps he voted for somebody, or lent money to somebody, or bought something of somebody, or otherwise obliged somebody, or job for somebody who knew somebody, who got the left-hand of the county to nominate him for the commission. On the commission he is at any rate, said I, and he writes to me here that he will be glad to show me, in operation, the only true system of prison discipline, the only unchallengeable way of making sincere and lasting converts and penitents, which, you know, is by solitary confinement. What do you say? To the system, inquired Traddles, looking grave, no, to my accepting the offer, and you're going with me. I don't object, said Traddles. Then I write to say so. Do you remember, to say nothing of our treatment, this same greekle turning his son out of doors, I suppose, and the life he used to lead his wife and daughter? Perfectly, said Traddles. Yet if you'll read his letter, you'll find he is the tendress of men to prisoners convicted of the whole calendar of felonies, said I. Though I can't find that his tenderness extends to any other class of creative beings. Traddles shrugged his shoulders, and was not at all surprised. I had not expected him to be, and was not surprised myself, or my observation of similar practical satires would have been but scanty. We arranged the time of our visit, and I wrote accordingly to Mr. Greekle that evening. On the appointed day, I think it was the next day, but no matter. Traddles and I repaired to the prison where Mr. Greekle was powerful. It was an immense and solid building erected at a vast expense. I could not help thinking, as we approached the gate, what an uproar would have been made in the country if any deluded man had proposed to spend one half the money he had to cost on the erection of an industrial school for the young, or a house of refuge for the deserving old. In an office that might have been on the ground floor of the Tower of Babel, it was so massively constructed, we were presented to our old schoolmaster, who was one of a group composed of two or three of the busiest sort of magistrates, and some visitors they had brought. He received me like a man who had formed my mind in bygone years, and had always loved me tenderly. On my introducing Traddles, Mr. Greekle expressed in like manner, but in an inferior degree, that he had always been Traddles' guide, philosopher, and friend. Our venerable instructor was a great deal older and not improved in appearance. His face was as far as ever. His eyes were as small and rather deeper set. The scanty, wet-looking gray 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 legitimately 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 clockwork. I set aside to Traddles that I wondered whether it occurred to anybody that there was a striking contrast between these plentiful repasts of choice quality and the dinners, not to say of paupers, but of soldiers, sailors, laborers, 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 and for all, I found that on that head and on all others the system put an end to all doubts, and disposed of all anomalies. 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. Creekel and his friends what was supposed to be the main advantages of this all-governing and universally overriding system. I found them to be the perfect isolation of prisoners, so that no one man in confinement there knew anything about another, and the reduction of prisoners to a wholesome state of mind, leading to sincere contrition and repentance. Now it struck me, when we began to visit individuals in their cells, and to traverse the passages in which those cells were, and to have the manner of the going to chapel and so forth explain 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 blasphemy against the system to have hinted such a doubt then, I looked out for the penitence as diligently as I could. And here again I had great misgivings. I found, as prevalent a fashion in the form of the penitence, as I had left outside in the forms of the coats and waist-cuts in the windows of the tailor's shops. I found a vast amount of profession, varying very little character, varying very little, which I thought exceedingly suspicious, even in words. I found a great many foxes disparaging whole vineyards of inaccessible grapes, but I found very few foxes whom I would have trusted within reach of a bunch. Above all, I found that the most professing men were the greatest obliques 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 goings 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 suspend my judgment until I should see twenty-seven. Twenty-eight Houndstove was also a bright particular star, but it was his misfortune to have his glory a little dimmed by the extraordinary luster of twenty-seven. I had so much of twenty-seven of his pious admonitions 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. Creakle, 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. Creakle directed the door of the cell to be unlocked, and number twenty-seven to be invited out into the passage. This was done. And whom should Tradles and I then behold to our amazement in this converted number twenty-seven? But your ryer heap! He knew us directly, and said as he came out with the old rithe, How do you do, Mr. Copperfield? How do you do, Mr. Tradles? This recognition caused a general admiration in the party. I rather thought that everyone was struck by his not being proud and taking notice of us. Well, twenty-seven, said Mr. Creakle, mournfully admiring him. How do you find yourself today? I'm very humble, sir, replied your ryer heap. You are always so, twenty-seven, said Mr. Creakle. Here another gentleman asked with extreme anxiety, Are you quite comfortable? Yes, I thank you, sir, said your ryer. The heap looking in that direction, far 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 questioner, forcing himself to the front, inquired with extreme feeling, How do you find the beef? Thank you, sir, replied your ryer, glancing in the new direction of this voice. It was tougher yesterday than I could wish, but it's my duty to bear. I have committed follies, gentlemen, said your ryer, looking around with a meek smile, and I ought to bear the consequence of it out, repining. A murmur partly of gratification of twenty-seven's celestial state of mind, and partly of indignation against the contractor who had given him any cause of complaint, a note of which was immediately made by Mr. Creakle. Having subsided, twenty-seven stood in the midst of us as if he felt himself the principal object of merit in a highly meritorious museum. That we, the neophytes, might have an excess of light shining upon us all at once, orders were given to let out twenty-eight. I've been so much astonished already that I only felt a kind of resigned wonder when Mr. Littimer walked forth reading a good book. Twenty-eight, said a gentleman in spectacles who had not yet spoken, you complained last week, my good fellow, of the cocoa. How has it been since? Thank you, sir, said Mr. Littimer. 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'm aware, sir, that there is a great adulteration 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. Creakle's twenty-seven, for each of them took his own man in hand. What is your state of mind, twenty-eight? said the questioner in spectacles. I thank you, sir, replied Mr. Littimer. I see my fault is now, sir. I'm a good deal trouble when I think of the sins of my former companion, sir, but I trust they may find forgiveness. You are quite happy yourself, said the questioner, nodding encouragement. I am much obliged to you, sir, returned Mr. Littimer. I say so. Is there anything at all in your mind now? said the questioner. If so, mention it, twenty-eight. Sir, said Mr. Littimer, 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 not 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 shading their eyes each with one hand, as if they had just come into church. This does you credit, twenty-eight, returned the questioner. I should have expected it of you. Is there anything else? Sir, returned Mr. Littimer, slightly lifting up his eyebrows, but not his eyes, there was a young woman who fell into dissolute courses that I endeavored to save, sir, but could not rescue. I begged that gentleman, if he has it in his power, to inform that young woman from me that I forgive her back conduct towards myself and that I call her to repentance, if he would be so good. I have no doubt, twenty-eight, returned the questioner, 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. Littimer. Gentlemen, I wish you a good day, and hoping you and your families will also see your wickedness and amend. With this, number twenty-eight retired, after a glance between him and your ryer, as if they were not altogether unknown to each other through 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. Creakle, entering on a clear stage with his man, is there anything that anyone could do for you? If so, mention it. I would humbly ask, sir, returned your ryer with the jerk of his malevolent head, for leave to write again to mother. It shall certainly be granted, said Mr. Creakle. Oh, thank you, sir, I am anxious about mother. I am afraid she ain't safe. Somebody in cautionally asked, what from? But there was a scandalized whisper of hush. Immortally safe, sir, returned your ryer, writhing 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 your ryer, stealing a look at us, as if he would have blighted 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. Creakle. Oh, dear yes, sir, cried this hopeful penitent. You wouldn't relapse if you were going out? Ask somebody else. Oh, dear no, sir. Well, said Mr. Creakle, this is very gratifying. You have addressed Mr. Copperfield, 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. Copperfield, said your ryer, looking at me, and a more villainous look I never saw, even on his visage. You knew me when, in spite of my follies, I was humble among them that was proud, and meek among them that was valid. You was valid to be yourself, Mr. Copperfield. You struck me a blow in the face, you know. General commiseration, several indignant glances directed at me. But I forgive you, Mr. Copperfield, said your ryer, making his forgiving nature the subject of a most impious 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'll curb your passions in future. I hope Mr. W will repent, and Mr. W, and all of that sinful lot. You've been visited with affliction, and I hope it may do you good. But you better have come here. Mr. W better have come here, and Mr. W, too. The best wish I could give you, Mr. Copperfield, 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'm sure it would be best for you. Was he all who ain't brought here? He sneaked back into his cell amidst a little chorus of approbation, and both Trattles and I experienced a great relief when he was locked in. It was a carriage wrist's feature in his repentance that I was feigned 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 warders, 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 Fereny 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, forgery, and conspiracy. Ian's some others. He set the others on. It was a deep plot for a large sum. Sentence, transportation for life. Twenty-seven was the knowingest bird of the lot, and had very nearly kept himself safe, but not quite. The bank was just about to put salt upon his tail. I know you just. Do you know twenty-eight's offence? Twenty-eight, returned my informant, speaking throughout in a low tone, and looking over his shoulders as we walked along the passage, to guard himself for being overheard in such an unlawful reference to these immaculates, by Creakle and the rest. Twenty-eight, also transportation, got a place and robbed the young master of a matter of two-hundred-and-fifty pounds in money and valuables 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 forgot her name. Not Mocha. That's it. Ead eluded pursuit, and was going to America in a flaxen wig and whiskers and such a complete disguise as never you see in all your born days. When the little woman, being in Southampton, met him walking along the street, picked him out with her sharp eye in a moment, ran to it's his legs to upset him, and held on to him like grim death. Excellent Miss Mocha! cried I. You'd have said so if you'd seen her standing on a chair in the witness-box of the trial, as I did, said my friend. He cut her face right open and pounded her in the most bootle manner when she took him, but she never loosed her old till he was locked up. She held so tight to him, in fact, that the officers were obliged to take them both together. She gave her evidence in the gamiest way, and was idly complimented by the bench, and cheered right on to her lodgings. She said in court that she'd have took him single-handed, on a kind of what she knew concerning him, if he had been Samson. It's my belief she would. It was mine, too, and I highly respected Miss Mocha 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 worshipper, Mr. Creakle, that twenty-seven and twenty-eight were perfectly consistent and unchanged, that exactly what they were then, they had always been, that the hypocritical knaves were just the subjects to make that sort of profession in such a place, that they knew its market value at least as well as we did in the immediate service it would do them when they were expatriated, 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, Traddles, said I, to have an unsound hobby written hard, for it's the sooner written to death. I hope so, replied Traddles. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens CHAPTER 62 A LIGHT SHINES ON MY WAY The year came round to Christmas time, and I had been at home above two months. I'd seen Agnes frequently, however loud the general voice might be in giving me encouragement, and however fervent the emotions and endeavours to which it roused me. I heard her lightest words of praise as I heard nothing else. At least once a week, and sometimes oftener, I rode over there and past the evening. I usually rode back at night, most sorrowfully when I left her, and I was glad to be up and out, rather than wandering over the past in weary wakefulness or miserable dreams. I wore away the longest part of many wild, sad nights in those rides, reviving 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 I read to Agnes 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 Dora what I could have wished my wife to be. My duty to Agnes, who loved me, with a love which if I disquarted I wronged most selfishly and poorly and could never restore. My matured assurance that I, who had worked out my own destiny, and won what I had impetuously set my art on, had no right to murmur and must bear. I realized what I felt and what I had learned. But I loved her. I now had even become some consolation to me, vaguely to conceive a distant day when I might blamelessly avarite, when all this should be over, when I could say, Agnes, so it was when I came home, and now I am old, and I never have loved since. She did not want to show me any change in herself. What she always had been to me, she still was, wholly unaltered. Between my aunt and me there had been something in this connection since the night of my return, which I cannot call a restraint or an avoidance of the subject, so much as an implied understanding that we thought of it 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 consciously to each other, as if we had unreservedly said so. But we reserved an unbroken silence. I believed that she had read, or partly read, my thoughts that night, and that she fully comprehended why I gave my no more distinct expression. This Christmas time being come, and Agnes having reposed no new confidence in me, I doubt that at several times a risen in my mind, whether she could have had that perception of the true state of my breast which restrained her with the apprehensioners given me pain, began to oppress me heavily. If that was so, my sacrifice was nothing, my plainest obligation to her unfulfilled, and every poor action I had shrunk from I was hourly 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 ruggedly from the north. I had been thinking of it, sweeping over those mountain wastes of snow in Switzerland, then inaccessible to any human foot, and had been speculating which was the lonelier, those solitary regions, or a deserted ocean. Riding to-day, Trot," said my aunt, putting her head in at the door. "'Yes,' said I, "'I'm going over to Canterbury. It's a good day for a ride.' "'I hope your horse may think so too,' said my aunt, but at present he's holding down his head and his ears, standing before the door there, as if he thought is stable, preferable. My aunt, I may observe, allowed my horse on the forbidden ground, but had not at all relented towards the donkeys. "'You'll 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 composably before her. She patted me on the shoulder and sat down in my chair. Of that attachment of Agnes. 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 steadfastly at me, with a kind of doubt or pity or suspense in her affection, that I summoned of the stronger determination to show her a perfectly cheerful face. "'And what is more, Trot?' said my aunt. "'Yes. I think Agnes 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 it from my aunt, and went lightly downstairs, 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 particles of ice brushed from the blades of grass by the wind, and born across the face. The hard clatter of the horse's hoofs, beating a tune upon the ground. The stiff-tilled soil, the snow-drift, lightly eddying in the chalk-pit as the breeze ruffled it. The smoking team, with the wagon of old hay, stopping to breathe on the hill-top and shaking their bells musically. The whitened slopes and sweeps have downed and lying against the dark sky, as if they were drawn on a huge slate. I found Agnes alone. The little girls had gone to their homes now, and she was alone by the far, reading. She put down her book on seeing me come in, and having welcomed me as usual, took her work-basket, 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. Agnes was very cheerful, and laughingly predicted that I should soon become too famous to be talked to on such subjects. So I make the most of my present time, you see, said Agnes, 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 were thoughtful to-day, Trotwood. Agnes, shall I tell you what about her? 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 Agnes, do you doubt my being true to you? No, she answered, with a look of astonishment. Do you doubt my being what I have always been to you? No, she answered, as before. Do you remember that I tried to tell you when I came home what adept gratitude I owed you, dearest Agnes, 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, Agnes." 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, Agnes, which seems strange, that there is someone upon whom you have bestowed the treasure of your love. Do you 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 reproachful 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. Without my knowing why, these tears allied themselves with a quietly sad smile which was so fixed in my remembrance, and shook me more with hope than fear or sorrow. Agnes, sister, dearest, what have I done? Let me go away, Trotwood, 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 needing their return. It seemed a very well that I must search through in a moment. Agnes, 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 unhappiness. 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 lighten it. For whom do I live now, Agnes, 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, Agnes, 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 your 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 alloy 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, brick and hair and hair, but very clear. I owe it to your pure friendship for me, Trotwood, which indeed I do not doubt to tell you. You are mistaken. I could 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 it is not what you suppose. I cannot reveal it or divide it. It has long been mine, and must remain mine. Agnes, 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 head, and all the colours of my life were changing. Dearest Agnes, whom I so respect and honour, whom I so devotedly love, when I came here today I thought that nothing could have rested this confession from me. I thought I could have kept it in my bosom all our lives till we were old. But Agnes, if I have indeed any newborn hope that I may ever call you something more than a sister, widely different from sister—her tears fell fast, but they were not like those she had lately shared, and I saw my hope brighten in them. Agnes, ever my guide and best support, if you had been more mindful 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 to confide in and rely upon in everything became a second nature, supplanting 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 thought she never was to be. When I loved Dora fondly, Agnes, as you know, yes, she cried earnestly, I am glad to know it. When I loved her, even then my love would have been incomplete without your sympathy. I had it, and it was perfected, and when I lost her, Agnes, 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 Agnes, 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 ripened to be what it was, and hence it was that I revealed it. I know, Agnes, 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 tendress recollections of the blossom that have withered in its bloom. I am so blessed, Trotwood, my heart is so overcharged, 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 speculate on what it is. Tell me, my dear, I have loved you all my life. Oh! We were happy. We were happy. Our tears were not for the trials, her 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 partaken 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 trunk-quillity. We stood together in the same old-fashioned window at night when the moon was shining. This with her quiet eyes raised up to it, I following her glance. Long miles of road then opened up 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, Peket is said, which it was to her pride to keep in redness an order for me. We found her in her spectacles sitting by the far. "'Goodness me,' said my aunt, peering through the dusk. Who is this you're bringing home?' "'Agnis,' said I. As we had arranged to say nothing at first, my aunt was not a little discomforted. She darted a hopeful glance at me when I said, "'Agnis,' but seeing that I looked as usual, she took off her spectacles in despair and rubbed her nose with them. She greeted Agnes heartily nevertheless, and we were soon in the lighted parlour downstairs 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 discomforture of Mr. Dick, who knew this to be a bad symptom. "'By the by-aunt,' said I, after dinner, I have been speaking to Agnes 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 Agnes 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 Agnes 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 hysterics, for the first and only time in all my knowledge of her. The hysterics called up Pegaty. The moment my aunt was restored she flew at Pegaty, and calling her a silly old creature hugged her with all her might. After that she hugged Mr. Dick, who was highly honoured, 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 Agnes was going to be married, and that I now knew better than any one how true it was. We were married within a fortnight. Traddles and Sophie 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 aspiration 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. Dearest husband, said Agnes, now that I may call you by that name I have one more thing to tell you. Let me hear it, love. It grows out of the night when Dora died. She sensed you for me. She did. She told me that she left me something. Can you think what it was? I believed I could. I drew the wife who had so long loved me closer to my side. She told me that she made a last request to me and left me a last charge. And it was that only I would occupy this vacant place, and Agnes later head upon my breast, and wept. And I wept with her, though we were so happy. End of chapter 62, recording by Simon Evers.