No More Learning

'

'No, I am not your darling. Because you must be sorry that you married
me, or else you wouldn't reason with me! ' returned Dora.

I felt so injured by the inconsequential nature of this charge, that it
gave me courage to be grave.

'Now, my own Dora,' said I, 'you are very childish, and are talking
nonsense. You must remember, I am sure, that I was obliged to go out
yesterday when dinner was half over; and that, the day before, I was
made quite unwell by being obliged to eat underdone veal in a hurry;
today, I don't dine at all--and I am afraid to say how long we waited
for breakfast--and then the water didn't boil. I don't mean to reproach
you, my dear, but this is not comfortable. '

'Oh, you cruel, cruel boy, to say I am a disagreeable wife! ' cried Dora.

'Now, my dear Dora, you must know that I never said that! '

'You said, I wasn't comfortable! ' cried Dora. 'I said the housekeeping
was not comfortable! '

'It's exactly the same thing! ' cried Dora. And she evidently thought so,
for she wept most grievously.

I took another turn across the room, full of love for my pretty wife,
and distracted by self-accusatory inclinations to knock my head against
the door. I sat down again, and said:

'I am not blaming you, Dora. We have both a great deal to learn. I am
only trying to show you, my dear, that you must--you really must' (I
was resolved not to give this up)--'accustom yourself to look after Mary
Anne. Likewise to act a little for yourself, and me. '

'I wonder, I do, at your making such ungrateful speeches,' sobbed Dora.
'When you know that the other day, when you said you would like a little
bit of fish, I went out myself, miles and miles, and ordered it, to
surprise you. '

'And it was very kind of you, my own darling,' said I. 'I felt it so
much that I wouldn't on any account have even mentioned that you
bought a Salmon--which was too much for two. Or that it cost one pound
six--which was more than we can afford. '

'You enjoyed it very much,' sobbed Dora. 'And you said I was a Mouse. '

'And I'll say so again, my love,' I returned, 'a thousand times! '

But I had wounded Dora's soft little heart, and she was not to be
comforted. She was so pathetic in her sobbing and bewailing, that I felt
as if I had said I don't know what to hurt her. I was obliged to hurry
away; I was kept out late; and I felt all night such pangs of remorse as
made me miserable. I had the conscience of an assassin, and was haunted
by a vague sense of enormous wickedness.

It was two or three hours past midnight when I got home. I found my
aunt, in our house, sitting up for me.

'Is anything the matter, aunt? ' said I, alarmed.

'Nothing, Trot,' she replied. 'Sit down, sit down. Little Blossom has
been rather out of spirits, and I have been keeping her company. That's
all. '

I leaned my head upon my hand; and felt more sorry and downcast, as I
sat looking at the fire, than I could have supposed possible so soon
after the fulfilment of my brightest hopes. As I sat thinking, I
happened to meet my aunt's eyes, which were resting on my face. There
was an anxious expression in them, but it cleared directly.

'I assure you, aunt,' said I, 'I have been quite unhappy myself all
night, to think of Dora's being so. But I had no other intention than to
speak to her tenderly and lovingly about our home-affairs. '

My aunt nodded encouragement.

'You must have patience, Trot,' said she.

'Of course. Heaven knows I don't mean to be unreasonable, aunt! '

'No, no,' said my aunt. 'But Little Blossom is a very tender little
blossom, and the wind must be gentle with her. '

I thanked my good aunt, in my heart, for her tenderness towards my wife;
and I was sure that she knew I did.

'Don't you think, aunt,' said I, after some further contemplation of the
fire, 'that you could advise and counsel Dora a little, for our mutual
advantage, now and then? '

'Trot,' returned my aunt, with some emotion, 'no! Don't ask me such a
thing. '

Her tone was so very earnest that I raised my eyes in surprise.

'I look back on my life, child,' said my aunt, 'and I think of some who
are in their graves, with whom I might have been on kinder terms. If I
judged harshly of other people's mistakes in marriage, it may have been
because I had bitter reason to judge harshly of my own. Let that pass. I
have been a grumpy, frumpy, wayward sort of a woman, a good many years.
I am still, and I always shall be. But you and I have done one another
some good, Trot,--at all events, you have done me good, my dear; and
division must not come between us, at this time of day. '

'Division between us! ' cried I.

'Child, child! ' said my aunt, smoothing her dress, 'how soon it might
come between us, or how unhappy I might make our Little Blossom, if I
meddled in anything, a prophet couldn't say. I want our pet to like me,
and be as gay as a butterfly. Remember your own home, in that second
marriage; and never do both me and her the injury you have hinted at! '

I comprehended, at once, that my aunt was right; and I comprehended the
full extent of her generous feeling towards my dear wife.

'These are early days, Trot,' she pursued, 'and Rome was not built in a
day, nor in a year. You have chosen freely for yourself'; a cloud passed
over her face for a moment, I thought; 'and you have chosen a very
pretty and a very affectionate creature. It will be your duty, and it
will be your pleasure too--of course I know that; I am not delivering
a lecture--to estimate her (as you chose her) by the qualities she has,
and not by the qualities she may not have. The latter you must develop
in her, if you can. And if you cannot, child,' here my aunt rubbed her
nose, 'you must just accustom yourself to do without 'em. But remember,
my dear, your future is between you two. No one can assist you; you are
to work it out for yourselves. This is marriage, Trot; and Heaven bless
you both, in it, for a pair of babes in the wood as you are! '

My aunt said this in a sprightly way, and gave me a kiss to ratify the
blessing.

'Now,' said she, 'light my little lantern, and see me into my bandbox by
the garden path'; for there was a communication between our cottages in
that direction. 'Give Betsey Trotwood's love to Blossom, when you come
back; and whatever you do, Trot, never dream of setting Betsey up as a
scarecrow, for if I ever saw her in the glass, she's quite grim enough
and gaunt enough in her private capacity! '

With this my aunt tied her head up in a handkerchief, with which she was
accustomed to make a bundle of it on such occasions; and I escorted her
home. As she stood in her garden, holding up her little lantern to light
me back, I thought her observation of me had an anxious air again; but
I was too much occupied in pondering on what she had said, and too much
impressed--for the first time, in reality--by the conviction that Dora
and I had indeed to work out our future for ourselves, and that no one
could assist us, to take much notice of it.

Dora came stealing down in her little slippers, to meet me, now that I
was alone; and cried upon my shoulder, and said I had been hard-hearted
and she had been naughty; and I said much the same thing in effect, I
believe; and we made it up, and agreed that our first little difference
was to be our last, and that we were never to have another if we lived a
hundred years.

The next domestic trial we went through, was the Ordeal of Servants.
Mary Anne's cousin deserted into our coal-hole, and was brought out, to
our great amazement, by a piquet of his companions in arms, who took
him away handcuffed in a procession that covered our front-garden with
ignominy. This nerved me to get rid of Mary Anne, who went so mildly,
on receipt of wages, that I was surprised, until I found out about the
tea-spoons, and also about the little sums she had borrowed in my
name of the tradespeople without authority. After an interval of Mrs.
Kidgerbury--the oldest inhabitant of Kentish Town, I believe, who went
out charing, but was too feeble to execute her conceptions of that
art--we found another treasure, who was one of the most amiable of
women, but who generally made a point of falling either up or down the
kitchen stairs with the tray, and almost plunged into the parlour,
as into a bath, with the tea-things. The ravages committed by this
unfortunate, rendering her dismissal necessary, she was succeeded (with
intervals of Mrs. Kidgerbury) by a long line of Incapables; terminating
in a young person of genteel appearance, who went to Greenwich Fair in
Dora's bonnet. After whom I remember nothing but an average equality of
failure.

Everybody we had anything to do with seemed to cheat us. Our appearance
in a shop was a signal for the damaged goods to be brought out
immediately. If we bought a lobster, it was full of water. All our meat
turned out to be tough, and there was hardly any crust to our loaves.
In search of the principle on which joints ought to be roasted, to be
roasted enough, and not too much, I myself referred to the Cookery Book,
and found it there established as the allowance of a quarter of an hour
to every pound, and say a quarter over. But the principle always failed
us by some curious fatality, and we never could hit any medium between
redness and cinders.

I had reason to believe that in accomplishing these failures we incurred
a far greater expense than if we had achieved a series of triumphs. It
appeared to me, on looking over the tradesmen's books, as if we might
have kept the basement storey paved with butter, such was the extensive
scale of our consumption of that article. I don't know whether the
Excise returns of the period may have exhibited any increase in the
demand for pepper; but if our performances did not affect the market,
I should say several families must have left off using it. And the most
wonderful fact of all was, that we never had anything in the house.

As to the washerwoman pawning the clothes, and coming in a state of
penitent intoxication to apologize, I suppose that might have happened
several times to anybody. Also the chimney on fire, the parish engine,
and perjury on the part of the Beadle. But I apprehend that we were
personally fortunate in engaging a servant with a taste for cordials,
who swelled our running account for porter at the public-house by such
inexplicable items as 'quartern rum shrub (Mrs. C. )'; 'Half-quartern
gin and cloves (Mrs. C. )'; 'Glass rum and peppermint (Mrs. C. )'--the
parentheses always referring to Dora, who was supposed, it appeared on
explanation, to have imbibed the whole of these refreshments.

One of our first feats in the housekeeping way was a little dinner to
Traddles. I met him in town, and asked him to walk out with me that
afternoon. He readily consenting, I wrote to Dora, saying I would bring
him home. It was pleasant weather, and on the road we made my domestic
happiness the theme of conversation. Traddles was very full of it; and
said, that, picturing himself with such a home, and Sophy waiting and
preparing for him, he could think of nothing wanting to complete his
bliss.

I could not have wished for a prettier little wife at the opposite end
of the table, but I certainly could have wished, when we sat down, for a
little more room. I did not know how it was, but though there were only
two of us, we were at once always cramped for room, and yet had always
room enough to lose everything in. I suspect it may have been because
nothing had a place of its own, except Jip's pagoda, which invariably
blocked up the main thoroughfare. On the present occasion, Traddles
was so hemmed in by the pagoda and the guitar-case, and Dora's
flower-painting, and my writing-table, that I had serious doubts of the
possibility of his using his knife and fork; but he protested, with his
own good-humour, 'Oceans of room, Copperfield! I assure you, Oceans! '

There was another thing I could have wished, namely, that Jip had never
been encouraged to walk about the tablecloth during dinner. I began to
think there was something disorderly in his being there at all, even
if he had not been in the habit of putting his foot in the salt or the
melted butter. On this occasion he seemed to think he was introduced
expressly to keep Traddles at bay; and he barked at my old friend, and
made short runs at his plate, with such undaunted pertinacity, that he
may be said to have engrossed the conversation.

However, as I knew how tender-hearted my dear Dora was, and how
sensitive she would be to any slight upon her favourite, I hinted no
objection. For similar reasons I made no allusion to the skirmishing
plates upon the floor; or to the disreputable appearance of the castors,
which were all at sixes and sevens, and looked drunk; or to the further
blockade of Traddles by wandering vegetable dishes and jugs. I could
not help wondering in my own mind, as I contemplated the boiled leg of
mutton before me, previous to carving it, how it came to pass that
our joints of meat were of such extraordinary shapes--and whether our
butcher contracted for all the deformed sheep that came into the world;
but I kept my reflections to myself.

'My love,' said I to Dora, 'what have you got in that dish? '

I could not imagine why Dora had been making tempting little faces at
me, as if she wanted to kiss me.

'Oysters, dear,' said Dora, timidly.

'Was that YOUR thought? ' said I, delighted.

'Ye-yes, Doady,' said Dora.

'There never was a happier one! ' I exclaimed, laying down the
carving-knife and fork. 'There is nothing Traddles likes so much! '

'Ye-yes, Doady,' said Dora, 'and so I bought a beautiful little barrel
of them, and the man said they were very good. But I--I am afraid
there's something the matter with them. They don't seem right. ' Here
Dora shook her head, and diamonds twinkled in her eyes.

'They are only opened in both shells,' said I. 'Take the top one off, my
love. '

'But it won't come off! ' said Dora, trying very hard, and looking very
much distressed.

'Do you know, Copperfield,' said Traddles, cheerfully examining the
dish, 'I think it is in consequence--they are capital oysters, but I
think it is in consequence--of their never having been opened. '

They never had been opened; and we had no oyster-knives--and couldn't
have used them if we had; so we looked at the oysters and ate the
mutton. At least we ate as much of it as was done, and made up with
capers. If I had permitted him, I am satisfied that Traddles would have
made a perfect savage of himself, and eaten a plateful of raw meat, to
express enjoyment of the repast; but I would hear of no such immolation
on the altar of friendship, and we had a course of bacon instead; there
happening, by good fortune, to be cold bacon in the larder.

My poor little wife was in such affliction when she thought I should be
annoyed, and in such a state of joy when she found I was not, that the
discomfiture I had subdued, very soon vanished, and we passed a happy
evening; Dora sitting with her arm on my chair while Traddles and I
discussed a glass of wine, and taking every opportunity of whispering
in my ear that it was so good of me not to be a cruel, cross old boy. By
and by she made tea for us; which it was so pretty to see her do, as if
she was busying herself with a set of doll's tea-things, that I was not
particular about the quality of the beverage. Then Traddles and I played
a game or two at cribbage; and Dora singing to the guitar the while,
it seemed to me as if our courtship and marriage were a tender dream
of mine, and the night when I first listened to her voice were not yet
over.

When Traddles went away, and I came back into the parlour from seeing
him out, my wife planted her chair close to mine, and sat down by my
side. 'I am very sorry,' she said. 'Will you try to teach me, Doady? '

'I must teach myself first, Dora,' said I. 'I am as bad as you, love. '

'Ah! But you can learn,' she returned; 'and you are a clever, clever
man! '

'Nonsense, mouse! ' said I.

'I wish,' resumed my wife, after a long silence, 'that I could have gone
down into the country for a whole year, and lived with Agnes! '

Her hands were clasped upon my shoulder, and her chin rested on them,
and her blue eyes looked quietly into mine.

'Why so? ' I asked.

'I think she might have improved me, and I think I might have learned
from her,' said Dora.

'All in good time, my love. Agnes has had her father to take care of for
these many years, you should remember. Even when she was quite a child,
she was the Agnes whom we know,' said I.

'Will you call me a name I want you to call me? ' inquired Dora, without
moving.

'What is it? ' I asked with a smile.

'It's a stupid name,' she said, shaking her curls for a moment.
'Child-wife. '

I laughingly asked my child-wife what her fancy was in desiring to be so
called. She answered without moving, otherwise than as the arm I twined
about her may have brought her blue eyes nearer to me:

'I don't mean, you silly fellow, that you should use the name instead
of Dora. I only mean that you should think of me that way. When you are
going to be angry with me, say to yourself, "it's only my child-wife! "
When I am very disappointing, say, "I knew, a long time ago, that she
would make but a child-wife! " When you miss what I should like to be,
and I think can never be, say, "still my foolish child-wife loves me! "
For indeed I do. '

I had not been serious with her; having no idea until now, that she was
serious herself. But her affectionate nature was so happy in what I now
said to her with my whole heart, that her face became a laughing one
before her glittering eyes were dry. She was soon my child-wife indeed;
sitting down on the floor outside the Chinese House, ringing all
the little bells one after another, to punish Jip for his recent bad
behaviour; while Jip lay blinking in the doorway with his head out, even
too lazy to be teased.

This appeal of Dora's made a strong impression on me. I look back on the
time I write of; I invoke the innocent figure that I dearly loved, to
come out from the mists and shadows of the past, and turn its gentle
head towards me once again; and I can still declare that this one little
speech was constantly in my memory. I may not have used it to the best
account; I was young and inexperienced; but I never turned a deaf ear to
its artless pleading.

Dora told me, shortly afterwards, that she was going to be a wonderful
housekeeper. Accordingly, she polished the tablets, pointed the pencil,
bought an immense account-book, carefully stitched up with a needle and
thread all the leaves of the Cookery Book which Jip had torn, and made
quite a desperate little attempt 'to be good', as she called it. But the
figures had the old obstinate propensity--they WOULD NOT add up. When
she had entered two or three laborious items in the account-book, Jip
would walk over the page, wagging his tail, and smear them all out. Her
own little right-hand middle finger got steeped to the very bone in ink;
and I think that was the only decided result obtained.

Sometimes, of an evening, when I was at home and at work--for I wrote
a good deal now, and was beginning in a small way to be known as a
writer--I would lay down my pen, and watch my child-wife trying to be
good. First of all, she would bring out the immense account-book, and
lay it down upon the table, with a deep sigh. Then she would open it at
the place where Jip had made it illegible last night, and call Jip
up, to look at his misdeeds. This would occasion a diversion in Jip's
favour, and some inking of his nose, perhaps, as a penalty. Then she
would tell Jip to lie down on the table instantly, 'like a lion'--which
was one of his tricks, though I cannot say the likeness was
striking--and, if he were in an obedient humour, he would obey. Then she
would take up a pen, and begin to write, and find a hair in it. Then
she would take up another pen, and begin to write, and find that it
spluttered. Then she would take up another pen, and begin to write, and
say in a low voice, 'Oh, it's a talking pen, and will disturb Doady!
'
And then she would give it up as a bad job, and put the account-book
away, after pretending to crush the lion with it.

Or, if she were in a very sedate and serious state of mind, she would
sit down with the tablets, and a little basket of bills and other
documents, which looked more like curl-papers than anything else, and
endeavour to get some result out of them. After severely comparing one
with another, and making entries on the tablets, and blotting them
out, and counting all the fingers of her left hand over and over again,
backwards and forwards, she would be so vexed and discouraged, and
would look so unhappy, that it gave me pain to see her bright face
clouded--and for me! --and I would go softly to her, and say:

'What's the matter, Dora? '

Dora would look up hopelessly, and reply, 'They won't come right. They
make my head ache so. And they won't do anything I want! '

Then I would say, 'Now let us try together. Let me show you, Dora. '

Then I would commence a practical demonstration, to which Dora would pay
profound attention, perhaps for five minutes; when she would begin to be
dreadfully tired, and would lighten the subject by curling my hair,
or trying the effect of my face with my shirt-collar turned down. If
I tacitly checked this playfulness, and persisted, she would look so
scared and disconsolate, as she became more and more bewildered, that
the remembrance of her natural gaiety when I first strayed into her
path, and of her being my child-wife, would come reproachfully upon me;
and I would lay the pencil down, and call for the guitar.

I had a great deal of work to do, and had many anxieties, but the same
considerations made me keep them to myself. I am far from sure, now,
that it was right to do this, but I did it for my child-wife's sake. I
search my breast, and I commit its secrets, if I know them, without any
reservation to this paper. The old unhappy loss or want of something
had, I am conscious, some place in my heart; but not to the embitterment
of my life. When I walked alone in the fine weather, and thought of the
summer days when all the air had been filled with my boyish enchantment,
I did miss something of the realization of my dreams; but I thought it
was a softened glory of the Past, which nothing could have thrown upon
the present time. I did feel, sometimes, for a little while, that I
could have wished my wife had been my counsellor; had had more character
and purpose, to sustain me and improve me by; had been endowed with
power to fill up the void which somewhere seemed to be about me; but
I felt as if this were an unearthly consummation of my happiness, that
never had been meant to be, and never could have been.

I was a boyish husband as to years. I had known the softening influence
of no other sorrows or experiences than those recorded in these leaves.
If I did any wrong, as I may have done much, I did it in mistaken love,
and in my want of wisdom. I write the exact truth. It would avail me
nothing to extenuate it now.

Thus it was that I took upon myself the toils and cares of our life,
and had no partner in them. We lived much as before, in reference to our
scrambling household arrangements; but I had got used to those, and Dora
I was pleased to see was seldom vexed now. She was bright and cheerful
in the old childish way, loved me dearly, and was happy with her old
trifles.

When the debates were heavy--I mean as to length, not quality, for in
the last respect they were not often otherwise--and I went home late,
Dora would never rest when she heard my footsteps, but would always come
downstairs to meet me. When my evenings were unoccupied by the pursuit
for which I had qualified myself with so much pains, and I was engaged
in writing at home, she would sit quietly near me, however late the
hour, and be so mute, that I would often think she had dropped asleep.
But generally, when I raised my head, I saw her blue eyes looking at me
with the quiet attention of which I have already spoken.

'Oh, what a weary boy! ' said Dora one night, when I met her eyes as I
was shutting up my desk.

'What a weary girl! ' said I. 'That's more to the purpose. You must go to
bed another time, my love. It's far too late for you. '

'No, don't send me to bed! ' pleaded Dora, coming to my side. 'Pray,
don't do that! '

'Dora! ' To my amazement she was sobbing on my neck. 'Not well, my dear!
not happy! '

'Yes! quite well, and very happy! ' said Dora. 'But say you'll let me
stop, and see you write. '

'Why, what a sight for such bright eyes at midnight! ' I replied.

'Are they bright, though? ' returned Dora, laughing. 'I'm so glad they're
bright. ' 'Little Vanity! ' said I.

But it was not vanity; it was only harmless delight in my admiration. I
knew that very well, before she told me so.

'If you think them pretty, say I may always stop, and see you write! '
said Dora. 'Do you think them pretty? '

'Very pretty. '

'Then let me always stop and see you write. '

'I am afraid that won't improve their brightness, Dora. '

'Yes, it will! Because, you clever boy, you'll not forget me then, while
you are full of silent fancies. Will you mind it, if I say something
very, very silly? ---more than usual? ' inquired Dora, peeping over my
shoulder into my face.

'What wonderful thing is that? ' said I.

'Please let me hold the pens,' said Dora. 'I want to have something to
do with all those many hours when you are so industrious. May I hold the
pens? '

The remembrance of her pretty joy when I said yes, brings tears into my
eyes. The next time I sat down to write, and regularly afterwards,
she sat in her old place, with a spare bundle of pens at her side. Her
triumph in this connexion with my work, and her delight when I wanted a
new pen--which I very often feigned to do--suggested to me a new way of
pleasing my child-wife. I occasionally made a pretence of wanting a
page or two of manuscript copied. Then Dora was in her glory. The
preparations she made for this great work, the aprons she put on, the
bibs she borrowed from the kitchen to keep off the ink, the time she
took, the innumerable stoppages she made to have a laugh with Jip as if
he understood it all, her conviction that her work was incomplete unless
she signed her name at the end, and the way in which she would bring it
to me, like a school-copy, and then, when I praised it, clasp me round
the neck, are touching recollections to me, simple as they might appear
to other men.

She took possession of the keys soon after this, and went jingling about
the house with the whole bunch in a little basket, tied to her slender
waist. I seldom found that the places to which they belonged were
locked, or that they were of any use except as a plaything for Jip--but
Dora was pleased, and that pleased me. She was quite satisfied that a
good deal was effected by this make-belief of housekeeping; and was as
merry as if we had been keeping a baby-house, for a joke.

So we went on. Dora was hardly less affectionate to my aunt than to me,
and often told her of the time when she was afraid she was 'a cross old
thing'. I never saw my aunt unbend more systematically to anyone. She
courted Jip, though Jip never responded; listened, day after day, to the
guitar, though I am afraid she had no taste for music; never attacked
the Incapables, though the temptation must have been severe; went
wonderful distances on foot to purchase, as surprises, any trifles that
she found out Dora wanted; and never came in by the garden, and missed
her from the room, but she would call out, at the foot of the stairs, in
a voice that sounded cheerfully all over the house:

'Where's Little Blossom? '



CHAPTER 45. MR. DICK FULFILS MY AUNT'S PREDICTIONS


It was some time now, since I had left the Doctor. Living in his
neighbourhood, I saw him frequently; and we all went to his house on two
or three occasions to dinner or tea. The Old Soldier was in permanent
quarters under the Doctor's roof. She was exactly the same as ever, and
the same immortal butterflies hovered over her cap.

Like some other mothers, whom I have known in the course of my life,
Mrs. Markleham was far more fond of pleasure than her daughter was.
She required a great deal of amusement, and, like a deep old soldier,
pretended, in consulting her own inclinations, to be devoting herself
to her child. The Doctor's desire that Annie should be entertained,
was therefore particularly acceptable to this excellent parent; who
expressed unqualified approval of his discretion.

I have no doubt, indeed, that she probed the Doctor's wound without
knowing it. Meaning nothing but a certain matured frivolity and
selfishness, not always inseparable from full-blown years, I think she
confirmed him in his fear that he was a constraint upon his young
wife, and that there was no congeniality of feeling between them, by so
strongly commending his design of lightening the load of her life.

'My dear soul,' she said to him one day when I was present, 'you know
there is no doubt it would be a little pokey for Annie to be always shut
up here. '

The Doctor nodded his benevolent head. 'When she comes to her mother's
age,' said Mrs. Markleham, with a flourish of her fan, 'then it'll be
another thing. You might put ME into a Jail, with genteel society and
a rubber, and I should never care to come out. But I am not Annie, you
know; and Annie is not her mother. '

'Surely, surely,' said the Doctor.

'You are the best of creatures--no, I beg your pardon! ' for the Doctor
made a gesture of deprecation, 'I must say before your face, as I always
say behind your back, you are the best of creatures; but of course you
don't--now do you? ---enter into the same pursuits and fancies as Annie? '

'No,' said the Doctor, in a sorrowful tone.

'No, of course not,' retorted the Old Soldier. 'Take your Dictionary,
for example. What a useful work a Dictionary is! What a necessary work!
The meanings of words! Without Doctor Johnson, or somebody of that sort,
we might have been at this present moment calling an Italian-iron,
a bedstead. But we can't expect a Dictionary--especially when it's
making--to interest Annie, can we? '

The Doctor shook his head.

'And that's why I so much approve,' said Mrs. Markleham, tapping him
on the shoulder with her shut-up fan, 'of your thoughtfulness. It shows
that you don't expect, as many elderly people do expect, old heads on
young shoulders. You have studied Annie's character, and you understand
it. That's what I find so charming! '

Even the calm and patient face of Doctor Strong expressed some little
sense of pain, I thought, under the infliction of these compliments.

'Therefore, my dear Doctor,' said the Old Soldier, giving him several
affectionate taps, 'you may command me, at all times and seasons. Now,
do understand that I am entirely at your service. I am ready to go with
Annie to operas, concerts, exhibitions, all kinds of places; and you
shall never find that I am tired. Duty, my dear Doctor, before every
consideration in the universe! '

She was as good as her word. She was one of those people who can bear
a great deal of pleasure, and she never flinched in her perseverance
in the cause. She seldom got hold of the newspaper (which she settled
herself down in the softest chair in the house to read through an
eye-glass, every day, for two hours), but she found out something that
she was certain Annie would like to see. It was in vain for Annie to
protest that she was weary of such things. Her mother's remonstrance
always was, 'Now, my dear Annie, I am sure you know better; and I must
tell you, my love, that you are not making a proper return for the
kindness of Doctor Strong. '

This was usually said in the Doctor's presence, and appeared to me to
constitute Annie's principal inducement for withdrawing her objections
when she made any. But in general she resigned herself to her mother,
and went where the Old Soldier would.

It rarely happened now that Mr. Maldon accompanied them. Sometimes
my aunt and Dora were invited to do so, and accepted the invitation.
Sometimes Dora only was asked. The time had been, when I should have
been uneasy in her going; but reflection on what had passed that
former night in the Doctor's study, had made a change in my mistrust. I
believed that the Doctor was right, and I had no worse suspicions.

My aunt rubbed her nose sometimes when she happened to be alone with
me, and said she couldn't make it out; she wished they were happier; she
didn't think our military friend (so she always called the Old Soldier)
mended the matter at all. My aunt further expressed her opinion, 'that
if our military friend would cut off those butterflies, and give 'em to
the chimney-sweepers for May-day, it would look like the beginning of
something sensible on her part. '

But her abiding reliance was on Mr. Dick. That man had evidently an
idea in his head, she said; and if he could only once pen it up into a
corner, which was his great difficulty, he would distinguish himself in
some extraordinary manner.

Unconscious of this prediction, Mr. Dick continued to occupy precisely
the same ground in reference to the Doctor and to Mrs. Strong. He seemed
neither to advance nor to recede. He appeared to have settled into his
original foundation, like a building; and I must confess that my faith
in his ever Moving, was not much greater than if he had been a building.

But one night, when I had been married some months, Mr. Dick put his
head into the parlour, where I was writing alone (Dora having gone out
with my aunt to take tea with the two little birds), and said, with a
significant cough:

'You couldn't speak to me without inconveniencing yourself, Trotwood, I
am afraid? '

'Certainly, Mr. Dick,' said I; 'come in! '

'Trotwood,' said Mr. Dick, laying his finger on the side of his nose,
after he had shaken hands with me. 'Before I sit down, I wish to make an
observation. You know your aunt? '

'A little,' I replied.

'She is the most wonderful woman in the world, sir! '

After the delivery of this communication, which he shot out of himself
as if he were loaded with it, Mr. Dick sat down with greater gravity
than usual, and looked at me.

'Now, boy,' said Mr. Dick, 'I am going to put a question to you. '

'As many as you please,' said I.

'What do you consider me, sir? ' asked Mr. Dick, folding his arms.

'A dear old friend,' said I. 'Thank you, Trotwood,' returned Mr. Dick,
laughing, and reaching across in high glee to shake hands with me. 'But
I mean, boy,' resuming his gravity, 'what do you consider me in this
respect? ' touching his forehead.

I was puzzled how to answer, but he helped me with a word.

'Weak? ' said Mr. Dick.

'Well,' I replied, dubiously. 'Rather so. '

'Exactly! ' cried Mr. Dick, who seemed quite enchanted by my reply. 'That
is, Trotwood, when they took some of the trouble out of you-know-who's
head, and put it you know where, there was a--' Mr. Dick made his two
hands revolve very fast about each other a great number of times, and
then brought them into collision, and rolled them over and over one
another, to express confusion. 'There was that sort of thing done to me
somehow. Eh? '

I nodded at him, and he nodded back again.

'In short, boy,' said Mr. Dick, dropping his voice to a whisper, 'I am
simple. '

I would have qualified that conclusion, but he stopped me.

'Yes, I am! She pretends I am not. She won't hear of it; but I am. I
know I am. If she hadn't stood my friend, sir, I should have been shut
up, to lead a dismal life these many years. But I'll provide for her!
I never spend the copying money. I put it in a box. I have made a will.
I'll leave it all to her. She shall be rich--noble! '

Mr. Dick took out his pocket-handkerchief, and wiped his eyes.