No More Learning

'

'And so am I,' said I.

'And I am sure I am! ' said the blushing and laughing Sophy.

'We are all as happy as possible! ' said Traddles. 'Even the girls are
happy. Dear me, I declare I forgot them! '

'Forgot? ' said I.

'The girls,' said Traddles. 'Sophy'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 Traddles, 'I was romping
with the girls. In point of fact, we were playing at 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 Traddles, glancing at
the door of another room.

'I am sorry,' said I, laughing afresh, 'to have occasioned such a
dispersion. '

'Upon my word,' rejoined Traddles, 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? '

Sophy tripped away, and we heard her received in the adjoining room with
a peal of laughter.

'Really musical, isn't it, my dear Copperfield? ' said Traddles. 'It's
very agreeable to hear. It quite lights up these old rooms. To an
unfortunate bachelor of a fellow who has lived alone all his life, you
know, it's positively delicious. It's charming. Poor things, they have
had a great loss in Sophy--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 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 a heartiness that evidently
relieved and pleased him greatly.

'But then,' said Traddles, 'our domestic arrangements are, to say
the truth, quite unprofessional altogether, my dear Copperfield. Even
Sophy's being here, is unprofessional. And we have no other place of
abode. We have put to sea in a cockboat, but we are quite prepared to
rough it. And Sophy's an extraordinary manager! You'll be surprised how
those girls are stowed away. I am sure I hardly know how it's done! '

'Are many of the young ladies with you? ' I inquired.

'The eldest, the Beauty is here,' said Traddles, in a low confidential
voice, 'Caroline. And Sarah's here--the one I mentioned to you as having
something the matter with her spine, you know. Immensely better! And the
two youngest that Sophy educated are with us. And Louisa's here. '

'Indeed! ' cried I.

'Yes,' said Traddles. 'Now the whole set--I mean the chambers--is only
three rooms; but Sophy arranges for the girls in the most wonderful way,
and they sleep as comfortably as possible. Three in that room,' said
Traddles, pointing. 'Two in that. '

I could not help glancing round, in search of the accommodation
remaining for Mr. and Mrs. Traddles. Traddles understood me.

'Well! ' said Traddles, 'we are prepared to rough it, as I said just 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
Sophy papered herself, to surprise me; and that's our room at present.
It's a capital little gipsy sort of place. There's quite a view from
it. '

'And you are happily married at last, my dear Traddles! ' said I. 'How
rejoiced I am! '

'Thank you, my dear Copperfield,' said Traddles, 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 Traddles, nodding triumphantly at the flower-pot
and stand; 'and there's the table with the marble top! All the other
furniture is plain and serviceable, you perceive. And as to plate, Lord
bless you, we haven't so much as a tea-spoon. '

'All to be earned? ' said I, cheerfully.

'Exactly so,' replied Traddles, 'all to be earned. Of course we have
something in the shape of tea-spoons, 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 Traddles. 'You see, my dear Copperfield,'
falling again into the low confidential tone, 'after I had delivered my
argument in DOE dem. JIPES versus WIGZIELL, 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 Sophy--who I do assure you, Copperfield, is the dearest girl! --'

'I am certain she is! ' said I.

'She is, indeed! ' rejoined Traddles. '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 Sophy and I had been engaged for a long
period, and that Sophy, with the permission of her parents, was more
than content to take me--in short,' said Traddles, 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, Sophy 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 Sophy'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 Traddles, '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 refer to the Reverend Horace--'

'I understand,' said I.

'--Or to Mrs. Crewler--it would be the utmost gratification of my
wishes, to be a parent to the girls. He replied in a most admirable
manner, exceedingly flattering to my feelings, and undertook to obtain
the consent of Mrs. Crewler 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 Traddles, 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! Mrs.
Crewler 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 blest as you
deserve to feel! '

'Oh! That's your partiality! ' laughed Traddles. '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 Michaelmas Term. But here,' said Traddles, breaking off
in his confidence, and speaking aloud, 'ARE the girls! Mr. Copperfield,
Miss Crewler--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 Sophy's bright looks, which was
better than that, and which assured me that my friend had chosen well.
We all sat round the fire; while the sharp boy, who I now divined had
lost his breath in putting the papers out, cleared them away again, and
produced the tea-things. After that, he retired for the night, shutting
the outer door upon us with a bang. Mrs. Traddles, 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 Traddles 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 Traddles ever for an instant missed the tea-spoons 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 Traddles and his wife, as her birthright and natural
endowment. If she had been born a Queen Bee, and they labouring 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
Traddles 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
Sophy. Somebody's hair fell down, and nobody but Sophy could put it up.
Somebody forgot how a particular tune went, and nobody but Sophy could
hum that tune right. Somebody wanted to recall the name of a place in
Devonshire, and only Sophy knew it. Something was wanted to be written
home, and Sophy alone could be trusted to write before breakfast in
the morning. Somebody broke down in a piece of knitting, and no one but
Sophy was able to put the defaulter in the right direction. They were
entire mistresses of the place, and Sophy and Traddles waited on them.
How many children Sophy 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 Sophy and Traddles. I am sure,
when I took my leave, and Traddles 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 Traddles good night. If
I had beheld a thousand roses blowing in a top set of chambers, in that
withered Gray's Inn, they could not have brightened it half so much.
The idea of those Devonshire girls, among the dry law-stationers and the
attorneys' offices; and of the tea and toast, and children's songs, in
that grim atmosphere of pounce and parchment, red-tape, dusty wafers,
ink-jars, brief and draft paper, law reports, writs, declarations, and
bills of costs; seemed almost as pleasantly fanciful as if I had
dreamed that the Sultan's famous family had been admitted on the roll of
attorneys, and had brought the talking bird, the singing tree, and the
golden water into Gray's Inn Hall. Somehow, I found that I had taken
leave of Traddles 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 inaptly 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 countenance
that might have arisen out of the fire, in its association with my early
remembrances.

Little Mr. Chillip the Doctor, to whose good offices I was indebted in
the very first chapter of this history, sat reading a newspaper in the
shadow of an opposite corner. He was tolerably stricken in years by this
time; but, being a mild, meek, calm little man, had worn so easily, that
I thought he looked at that moment just as he might have looked when he
sat in our parlour, waiting for me to be born.

Mr. Chillip had left Blunderstone six or seven years ago, and I had
never seen him since. He sat placidly perusing the newspaper, with his
little head on one side, and a glass of warm sherry negus 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.
Chillip? '

He was greatly fluttered by this unexpected address from a stranger, and
replied, in his slow way, 'I thank you, sir, you are very good. Thank
you, sir. I hope YOU are well. '

'You don't remember me? ' said I.

'Well, sir,' returned Mr. Chillip, smiling very meekly, and shaking his
head as he surveyed me, 'I have a kind of an impression that something
in your countenance is familiar to me, sir; but I couldn't lay my hand
upon your name, really. '

'And yet you knew it, long before I knew it myself,' I returned.

'Did I indeed, sir? ' said Mr. Chillip. 'Is it possible that I had the
honour, sir, of officiating when--? '

'Yes,' said I.

'Dear me! ' cried Mr. Chillip. 'But no doubt you are a good deal changed
since then, sir? '

'Probably,' said I.

'Well, sir,' observed Mr. Chillip, '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 evince 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. Chillip, surveying me with his head on one
side. 'And it's 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's a strong resemblance between you and your poor father, sir. '

'I never had the happiness of seeing my father,' I observed.

'Very true, sir,' said Mr. Chillip, in a soothing tone. 'And very much
to be deplored it was, on all accounts! We are not ignorant, sir,' said
Mr. Chillip, 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. Chillip, tapping himself on the forehead with his forefinger.
'You must find it a trying occupation, sir! '

'What is your part of the country now? ' I asked, seating myself near
him.

'I am established within a few miles of Bury St. Edmund's, sir,' said
Mr. Chillip. 'Mrs. Chillip, coming into a little property in that
neighbourhood, under her father's will, I bought a practice down there,
in which you will be glad to hear I am doing well. My daughter is
growing quite a tall lass now, sir,' said Mr. Chillip, 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 but yesterday that I had the honour of
attending you in 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. Chillip, 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. Chillip. '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.
Chillip? '

'Are you not aware, sir,' returned Mr. Chillip, with his placidest
smile, 'that your father-in-law is again a neighbour of mine? '

'No,' said I.

'He is indeed, sir! ' said Mr. Chillip. 'Married a young lady of that
part, with a very good little property, poor thing. ---And this action
of the brain now, sir? Don't you find it fatigue you? ' said Mr. Chillip,
looking at me like an admiring Robin.

I waived that question, and returned to the Murdstones. '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. Murdstone
and his sister, sir. '

I replied with such an expressive look, that Mr. Chillip was emboldened
by that, and the negus 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.

'Well, sir,' replied Mr. Chillip, '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 as to
this life and the next. '

'The next will be regulated without much reference to them, I dare say,'
I returned: 'what are they doing as to this? '

Mr. Chillip shook his head, stirred his negus, and sipped it.

'She was a charming woman, sir! ' he observed in a plaintive manner.

'The present Mrs. Murdstone? '

A charming woman indeed, sir,' said Mr. Chillip; 'as amiable, I am sure,
as it was possible to be! Mrs. Chillip'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. Chillip, timorously, 'are
great observers, sir. '

'I suppose she was to be subdued and broken to their detestable mould,
Heaven help her! ' said I. 'And she has been. '

'Well, sir, there were violent quarrels at first, I assure you,' said
Mr. Chillip; '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. Chillip, fortifying himself
with another sip of negus, 'between you and me, sir, that her mother
died of it--or that tyranny, gloom, and worry have made Mrs. Murdstone
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. Chillip's remark to me, only last week. And I assure you, sir, the
ladies are great observers. Mrs. Chillip 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. Chillip, his eyelids getting quite
red with the unwonted stimulus in which he was indulging. 'One of Mrs.
Chillip's most impressive remarks. Mrs. Chillip,' he proceeded, in the
calmest and slowest manner, 'quite electrified me, by pointing out
that Mr. Murdstone 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 pen, I assure you, when Mrs. Chillip 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. Murdstone delivers public addresses sometimes, and it
is said,--in short, sir, it is said by Mrs. Chillip,--that the darker
tyrant he has lately been, the more ferocious is his doctrine. '

'I believe Mrs. Chillip to be perfectly right,' said I.

'Mrs. Chillip 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 do you know I must say,
sir,' he continued, mildly laying his head on one side, 'that I DON'T
find authority for Mr. and Miss Murdstone in the New Testament? '

'I never found it either! ' said I.

'In the meantime, sir,' said Mr. Chillip, 'they are much disliked;
and as they are very free in consigning everybody who dislikes them
to perdition, we really have a good deal of perdition going on in
our neighbourhood! However, as Mrs. Chillip 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. Chillip'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 Gray'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,' he said, 'I am extremely nervous on such occasions. I could
not support being what is called Bullied, sir. It would quite unman
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 negus; but I should think his placid little
pulse must have made two or three more beats in a minute, than it had
done since the great night of my aunt's disappointment, when she struck
at him with her bonnet.

Thoroughly tired, I went to bed too, at midnight; passed the next day on
the Dover coach; burst safe and sound into my aunt's old parlour while
she was at tea (she wore spectacles now); and was received by her, and
Mr. Dick, and dear old Peggotty, 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. Chillip, and of
his holding her in such dread remembrance; and both she and Peggotty
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.



CHAPTER 60. AGNES


My aunt and I, when we were left alone, talked far into the night. How
the emigrants never wrote home, otherwise than cheerfully and hopefully;
how Mr. Micawber had actually remitted divers 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 the First 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 monotonous restraint;
and how (as a novel general conclusion) nobody but she could ever fully
know what he was.

'And when, Trot,' said my aunt, patting the back of my hand, as we sat
in our old way before the fire, 'when are you going over to Canterbury? '

'I shall get a horse, and ride over tomorrow morning, aunt, unless you
will go with me? '

'No! ' said my aunt, in her short abrupt way. 'I mean to stay where I
am. '

Then, I should ride, I said. I could not have come through Canterbury
today without stopping, if I had been coming to anyone but her.

She was pleased, but answered, 'Tut, Trot; MY old bones would have
kept till tomorrow! ' 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 regrets they might be, teaching me what I had failed
to learn when my younger life was all before me, but not the less
regrets. 'Oh, Trot,' I seemed to hear my aunt say once more; and I
understood her better now--'Blind, blind, blind! '

We both kept silence for some minutes. When I raised my eyes, I found
that she was steadily observant of me. Perhaps she had followed the
current of my mind; for it seemed to me an easy one to track now, wilful
as it had been once.

'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 inch-rule now. Trust me, child, such things must shrink
very much, before they can be measured off in that way. '

'Indeed they must,' said I.

'You will find her,' pursued my aunt, 'as good, as beautiful, as
earnest, as disinterested, as she has always been. If I knew higher
praise, Trot, I would bestow it on her. '

There was no higher praise for her; no higher reproach for me. 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 than 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.

'A score,' cried my aunt, with a kind of indignant pride. 'She might
have married twenty times, my dear, since you have been gone! '

'No doubt,' said I. 'No doubt. But has she any lover who is worthy of
her? Agnes could care for no other. '

My aunt sat musing for a little while, with her chin upon her hand.
Slowly raising her eyes to mine, she said:

'I suspect she has an attachment, Trot. '

'A prosperous one?