No More Learning

' she retorted. 'Why do you bring this man here? '

'He is a deeply-injured man, Miss Dartle,' I replied. 'You may not know
it. '

'I know that James Steerforth,' she said, with her hand on her bosom, as
if to prevent the storm that was raging there, from being loud, 'has
a false, corrupt heart, and is a traitor. But what need I know or care
about this fellow, and his common niece? '

'Miss Dartle,' I returned, 'you deepen the injury. It is sufficient
already. I will only say, at parting, that you do him a great wrong. '

'I do him no wrong,' she returned. 'They are a depraved, worthless set.
I would have her whipped! '

Mr. Peggotty passed on, without a word, and went out at the door.

'Oh, shame, Miss Dartle! shame! ' I said indignantly. 'How can you bear
to trample on his undeserved affliction! '

'I would trample on them all,' she answered. 'I would have his house
pulled down. I would have her branded on the face, dressed in rags,
and cast out in the streets to starve. If I had the power to sit in
judgement on her, I would see it done. See it done? I would do it! I
detest her. If I ever could reproach her with her infamous condition, I
would go anywhere to do so. If I could hunt her to her grave, I would.
If there was any word of comfort that would be a solace to her in her
dying hour, and only I possessed it, I wouldn't part with it for Life
itself. '

The mere vehemence of her words can convey, I am sensible, but a weak
impression of the passion by which she was possessed, and which made
itself articulate in her whole figure, though her voice, instead of
being raised, was lower than usual. No description I could give of her
would do justice to my recollection of her, or to her entire deliverance
of herself to her anger. I have seen passion in many forms, but I have
never seen it in such a form as that.

When I joined Mr. Peggotty, he was walking slowly and thoughtfully down
the hill. He told me, as soon as I came up with him, that having now
discharged his mind of what he had purposed doing in London, he meant
'to set out on his travels', that night. I asked him where he meant to
go? He only answered, 'I'm a going, sir, to seek my niece. '

We went back to the little lodging over the chandler's shop, and there
I found an opportunity of repeating to Peggotty what he had said to
me. She informed me, in return, that he had said the same to her that
morning. She knew no more than I did, where he was going, but she
thought he had some project shaped out in his mind.

I did not like to leave him, under such circumstances, and we all three
dined together off a beefsteak pie--which was one of the many good
things for which Peggotty was famous--and which was curiously flavoured
on this occasion, I recollect well, by a miscellaneous taste of tea,
coffee, butter, bacon, cheese, new loaves, firewood, candles, and walnut
ketchup, continually ascending from the shop. After dinner we sat for an
hour or so near the window, without talking much; and then Mr. Peggotty
got up, and brought his oilskin bag and his stout stick, and laid them
on the table.

He accepted, from his sister's stock of ready money, a small sum on
account of his legacy; barely enough, I should have thought, to keep him
for a month. He promised to communicate with me, when anything befell
him; and he slung his bag about him, took his hat and stick, and bade us
both 'Good-bye! '

'All good attend you, dear old woman,' he said, embracing Peggotty, 'and
you too, Mas'r Davy! ' shaking hands with me. 'I'm a-going to seek her,
fur and wide. If she should come home while I'm away--but ah, that ain't
like to be! --or if I should bring her back, my meaning is, that she
and me shall live and die where no one can't reproach her. If any hurt
should come to me, remember that the last words I left for her was, "My
unchanged love is with my darling child, and I forgive her! "'

He said this solemnly, bare-headed; then, putting on his hat, he went
down the stairs, and away. We followed to the door. It was a warm, dusty
evening, just the time when, in the great main thoroughfare out of which
that by-way turned, there was a temporary lull in the eternal tread of
feet upon the pavement, and a strong red sunshine. He turned, alone, at
the corner of our shady street, into a glow of light, in which we lost
him.

Rarely did that hour of the evening come, rarely did I wake at night,
rarely did I look up at the moon, or stars, or watch the falling rain,
or hear the wind, but I thought of his solitary figure toiling on, poor
pilgrim, and recalled the words:

'I'm a going to seek her, fur and wide. If any hurt should come to me,
remember that the last words I left for her was, "My unchanged love is
with my darling child, and I forgive her! "'



CHAPTER 33. BLISSFUL


All this time, I had gone on loving Dora, harder than ever. Her idea was
my refuge in disappointment and distress, and made some amends to me,
even for the loss of my friend. The more I pitied myself, or pitied
others, the more I sought for consolation in the image of Dora. The
greater the accumulation of deceit and trouble in the world, the
brighter and the purer shone the star of Dora high above the world. I
don't think I had any definite idea where Dora came from, or in what
degree she was related to a higher order of beings; but I am quite sure
I should have scouted the notion of her being simply human, like any
other young lady, with indignation and contempt.

If I may so express it, I was steeped in Dora. I was not merely over
head and ears in love with her, but I was saturated through and through.
Enough love might have been wrung out of me, metaphorically speaking,
to drown anybody in; and yet there would have remained enough within me,
and all over me, to pervade my entire existence.

The first thing I did, on my own account, when I came back, was to take
a night-walk to Norwood, and, like the subject of a venerable riddle of
my childhood, to go 'round and round the house, without ever
touching the house', thinking about Dora. I believe the theme of this
incomprehensible conundrum was the moon. No matter what it was, I, the
moon-struck slave of Dora, perambulated round and round the house and
garden for two hours, looking through crevices in the palings, getting
my chin by dint of violent exertion above the rusty nails on the top,
blowing kisses at the lights in the windows, and romantically calling
on the night, at intervals, to shield my Dora--I don't exactly know what
from, I suppose from fire. Perhaps from mice, to which she had a great
objection.

My love was so much in my mind and it was so natural to me to confide in
Peggotty, when I found her again by my side of an evening with the old
set of industrial implements, busily making the tour of my wardrobe,
that I imparted to her, in a sufficiently roundabout way, my great
secret. Peggotty was strongly interested, but I could not get her into
my view of the case at all. She was audaciously prejudiced in my favour,
and quite unable to understand why I should have any misgivings, or be
low-spirited about it. 'The young lady might think herself well off,'
she observed, 'to have such a beau. And as to her Pa,' she said, 'what
did the gentleman expect, for gracious sake! '

I observed, however, that Mr. Spenlow's proctorial gown and stiff cravat
took Peggotty down a little, and inspired her with a greater reverence
for the man who was gradually becoming more and more etherealized in my
eyes every day, and about whom a reflected radiance seemed to me to beam
when he sat erect in Court among his papers, like a little lighthouse in
a sea of stationery. And by the by, it used to be uncommonly strange
to me to consider, I remember, as I sat in Court too, how those dim old
judges and doctors wouldn't have cared for Dora, if they had known
her; how they wouldn't have gone out of their senses with rapture, if
marriage with Dora had been proposed to them; how Dora might have sung,
and played upon that glorified guitar, until she led me to the verge of
madness, yet not have tempted one of those slow-goers an inch out of his
road!

I despised them, to a man. Frozen-out old gardeners in the flower-beds
of the heart, I took a personal offence against them all. The Bench
was nothing to me but an insensible blunderer. The Bar had no more
tenderness or poetry in it, than the bar of a public-house.

Taking the management of Peggotty's affairs into my own hands, with
no little pride, I proved the will, and came to a settlement with the
Legacy Duty-office, and took her to the Bank, and soon got everything
into an orderly train. We varied the legal character of these
proceedings by going to see some perspiring Wax-work, in Fleet Street
(melted, I should hope, these twenty years); and by visiting Miss
Linwood's Exhibition, which I remember as a Mausoleum of needlework,
favourable to self-examination and repentance; and by inspecting the
Tower of London; and going to the top of St. Paul's. All these wonders
afforded Peggotty as much pleasure as she was able to enjoy, under
existing circumstances: except, I think, St. Paul's, which, from her
long attachment to her work-box, became a rival of the picture on the
lid, and was, in some particulars, vanquished, she considered, by that
work of art.

Peggotty's business, which was what we used to call 'common-form
business' in the Commons (and very light and lucrative the common-form
business was), being settled, I took her down to the office one morning
to pay her bill. Mr. Spenlow had stepped out, old Tiffey said, to get a
gentleman sworn for a marriage licence; but as I knew he would be
back directly, our place lying close to the Surrogate's, and to the
Vicar-General's office too, I told Peggotty to wait.

We were a little like undertakers, in the Commons, as regarded Probate
transactions; generally making it a rule to look more or less cut up,
when we had to deal with clients in mourning. In a similar feeling
of delicacy, we were always blithe and light-hearted with the licence
clients. Therefore I hinted to Peggotty that she would find Mr. Spenlow
much recovered from the shock of Mr. Barkis's decease; and indeed he
came in like a bridegroom.

But neither Peggotty nor I had eyes for him, when we saw, in company
with him, Mr. Murdstone. He was very little changed. His hair looked as
thick, and was certainly as black, as ever; and his glance was as little
to be trusted as of old.

'Ah, Copperfield? ' said Mr. Spenlow. 'You know this gentleman, I
believe? '

I made my gentleman a distant bow, and Peggotty barely recognized him.
He was, at first, somewhat disconcerted to meet us two together; but
quickly decided what to do, and came up to me.

'I hope,' he said, 'that you are doing well? '

'It can hardly be interesting to you,' said I. 'Yes, if you wish to
know. '

We looked at each other, and he addressed himself to Peggotty.

'And you,' said he. 'I am sorry to observe that you have lost your
husband. '

'It's not the first loss I have had in my life, Mr. Murdstone,' replied
Peggotty, trembling from head to foot. 'I am glad to hope that there is
nobody to blame for this one,--nobody to answer for it. '

'Ha! ' said he; 'that's a comfortable reflection. You have done your
duty? '

'I have not worn anybody's life away,' said Peggotty, 'I am thankful to
think! No, Mr. Murdstone, I have not worrited and frightened any sweet
creetur to an early grave! '

He eyed her gloomily--remorsefully I thought--for an instant; and said,
turning his head towards me, but looking at my feet instead of my face:

'We are not likely to encounter soon again;--a source of satisfaction to
us both, no doubt, for such meetings as this can never be agreeable. I
do not expect that you, who always rebelled against my just authority,
exerted for your benefit and reformation, should owe me any good-will
now. There is an antipathy between us--'

'An old one, I believe? ' said I, interrupting him.

He smiled, and shot as evil a glance at me as could come from his dark
eyes.

'It rankled in your baby breast,' he said. 'It embittered the life of
your poor mother. You are right. I hope you may do better, yet; I hope
you may correct yourself. '

Here he ended the dialogue, which had been carried on in a low voice,
in a corner of the outer office, by passing into Mr. Spenlow's room, and
saying aloud, in his smoothest manner:

'Gentlemen of Mr. Spenlow's profession are accustomed to family
differences, and know how complicated and difficult they always are! '
With that, he paid the money for his licence; and, receiving it neatly
folded from Mr. Spenlow, together with a shake of the hand, and a polite
wish for his happiness and the lady's, went out of the office.

I might have had more difficulty in constraining myself to be silent
under his words, if I had had less difficulty in impressing upon
Peggotty (who was only angry on my account, good creature! ) that we were
not in a place for recrimination, and that I besought her to hold her
peace. She was so unusually roused, that I was glad to compound for
an affectionate hug, elicited by this revival in her mind of our old
injuries, and to make the best I could of it, before Mr. Spenlow and the
clerks.

Mr. Spenlow did not appear to know what the connexion between Mr.
Murdstone and myself was; which I was glad of, for I could not bear to
acknowledge him, even in my own breast, remembering what I did of the
history of my poor mother. Mr. Spenlow seemed to think, if he thought
anything about the matter, that my aunt was the leader of the state
party in our family, and that there was a rebel party commanded by
somebody else--so I gathered at least from what he said, while we were
waiting for Mr. Tiffey to make out Peggotty's bill of costs.

'Miss Trotwood,' he remarked, 'is very firm, no doubt, and not likely
to give way to opposition. I have an admiration for her character, and
I may congratulate you, Copperfield, on being on the right side.
Differences between relations are much to be deplored--but they are
extremely general--and the great thing is, to be on the right side':
meaning, I take it, on the side of the moneyed interest.

'Rather a good marriage this, I believe? ' said Mr. Spenlow.

I explained that I knew nothing about it.

'Indeed! ' he said. 'Speaking from the few words Mr. Murdstone
dropped--as a man frequently does on these occasions--and from what Miss
Murdstone let fall, I should say it was rather a good marriage. '

'Do you mean that there is money, sir? ' I asked.

'Yes,' said Mr. Spenlow, 'I understand there's money. Beauty too, I am
told. '

'Indeed! Is his new wife young? '

'Just of age,' said Mr. Spenlow. 'So lately, that I should think they
had been waiting for that. '

'Lord deliver her! ' said Peggotty. So very emphatically and
unexpectedly, that we were all three discomposed; until Tiffey came in
with the bill.

Old Tiffey soon appeared, however, and handed it to Mr. Spenlow, to
look over. Mr. Spenlow, settling his chin in his cravat and rubbing it
softly, went over the items with a deprecatory air--as if it were all
Jorkins's doing--and handed it back to Tiffey with a bland sigh.

'Yes,' he said. 'That's right. Quite right. I should have been extremely
happy, Copperfield, to have limited these charges to the actual
expenditure out of pocket, but it is an irksome incident in my
professional life, that I am not at liberty to consult my own wishes. I
have a partner--Mr. Jorkins. '

As he said this with a gentle melancholy, which was the next thing to
making no charge at all, I expressed my acknowledgements on Peggotty's
behalf, and paid Tiffey in banknotes. Peggotty then retired to
her lodging, and Mr. Spenlow and I went into Court, where we had a
divorce-suit coming on, under an ingenious little statute (repealed
now, I believe, but in virtue of which I have seen several marriages
annulled), of which the merits were these. The husband, whose name was
Thomas Benjamin, had taken out his marriage licence as Thomas only;
suppressing the Benjamin, in case he should not find himself as
comfortable as he expected. NOT finding himself as comfortable as he
expected, or being a little fatigued with his wife, poor fellow, he
now came forward, by a friend, after being married a year or two, and
declared that his name was Thomas Benjamin, and therefore he was not
married at all. Which the Court confirmed, to his great satisfaction.

I must say that I had my doubts about the strict justice of this,
and was not even frightened out of them by the bushel of wheat which
reconciles all anomalies. But Mr. Spenlow argued the matter with me. He
said, Look at the world, there was good and evil in that; look at the
ecclesiastical law, there was good and evil in THAT. It was all part of
a system. Very good. There you were!

I had not the hardihood to suggest to Dora's father that possibly
we might even improve the world a little, if we got up early in the
morning, and took off our coats to the work; but I confessed that I
thought we might improve the Commons. Mr. Spenlow replied that he would
particularly advise me to dismiss that idea from my mind, as not being
worthy of my gentlemanly character; but that he would be glad to hear
from me of what improvement I thought the Commons susceptible?

Taking that part of the Commons which happened to be nearest to us--for
our man was unmarried by this time, and we were out of Court, and
strolling past the Prerogative Office--I submitted that I thought the
Prerogative Office rather a queerly managed institution. Mr. Spenlow
inquired in what respect? I replied, with all due deference to his
experience (but with more deference, I am afraid, to his being Dora's
father), that perhaps it was a little nonsensical that the Registry of
that Court, containing the original wills of all persons leaving effects
within the immense province of Canterbury, for three whole centuries,
should be an accidental building, never designed for the purpose, leased
by the registrars for their Own private emolument, unsafe, not even
ascertained to be fire-proof, choked with the important documents
it held, and positively, from the roof to the basement, a mercenary
speculation of the registrars, who took great fees from the public, and
crammed the public's wills away anyhow and anywhere, having no other
object than to get rid of them cheaply. That, perhaps, it was a little
unreasonable that these registrars in the receipt of profits amounting
to eight or nine thousand pounds a year (to say nothing of the profits
of the deputy registrars, and clerks of seats), should not be obliged to
spend a little of that money, in finding a reasonably safe place for the
important documents which all classes of people were compelled to hand
over to them, whether they would or no. That, perhaps, it was a little
unjust, that all the great offices in this great office should be
magnificent sinecures, while the unfortunate working-clerks in the cold
dark room upstairs were the worst rewarded, and the least considered
men, doing important services, in London. That perhaps it was a little
indecent that the principal registrar of all, whose duty it was to
find the public, constantly resorting to this place, all needful
accommodation, should be an enormous sinecurist in virtue of that post
(and might be, besides, a clergyman, a pluralist, the holder of a
staff in a cathedral, and what not),--while the public was put to the
inconvenience of which we had a specimen every afternoon when the office
was busy, and which we knew to be quite monstrous.
That, perhaps,
in short, this Prerogative Office of the diocese of Canterbury was
altogether such a pestilent job, and such a pernicious absurdity, that
but for its being squeezed away in a corner of St. Paul's Churchyard,
which few people knew, it must have been turned completely inside out,
and upside down, long ago.

Mr. Spenlow smiled as I became modestly warm on the subject, and then
argued this question with me as he had argued the other. He said, what
was it after all? It was a question of feeling. If the public felt
that their wills were in safe keeping, and took it for granted that the
office was not to be made better, who was the worse for it? Nobody. Who
was the better for it? All the Sinecurists. Very well. Then the good
predominated. It might not be a perfect system; nothing was perfect;
but what he objected to, was, the insertion of the wedge. Under the
Prerogative Office, the country had been glorious. Insert the wedge into
the Prerogative Office, and the country would cease to be glorious. He
considered it the principle of a gentleman to take things as he found
them; and he had no doubt the Prerogative Office would last our time. I
deferred to his opinion, though I had great doubts of it myself. I find
he was right, however; for it has not only lasted to the present moment,
but has done so in the teeth of a great parliamentary report made (not
too willingly) eighteen years ago, when all these objections of mine
were set forth in detail, and when the existing stowage for wills was
described as equal to the accumulation of only two years and a half
more. What they have done with them since; whether they have lost many,
or whether they sell any, now and then, to the butter shops; I don't
know. I am glad mine is not there, and I hope it may not go there, yet
awhile.

I have set all this down, in my present blissful chapter, because here
it comes into its natural place. Mr. Spenlow and I falling into this
conversation, prolonged it and our saunter to and fro, until we diverged
into general topics. And so it came about, in the end, that Mr. Spenlow
told me this day week was Dora's birthday, and he would be glad if I
would come down and join a little picnic on the occasion. I went out of
my senses immediately; became a mere driveller next day, on receipt of
a little lace-edged sheet of note-paper, 'Favoured by papa. To remind';
and passed the intervening period in a state of dotage.

I think I committed every possible absurdity in the way of preparation
for this blessed event. I turn hot when I remember the cravat I bought.
My boots might be placed in any collection of instruments of torture.
I provided, and sent down by the Norwood coach the night before, a
delicate little hamper, amounting in itself, I thought, almost to a
declaration. There were crackers in it with the tenderest mottoes that
could be got for money. At six in the morning, I was in Covent Garden
Market, buying a bouquet for Dora. At ten I was on horseback (I hired a
gallant grey, for the occasion), with the bouquet in my hat, to keep it
fresh, trotting down to Norwood.

I suppose that when I saw Dora in the garden and pretended not to see
her, and rode past the house pretending to be anxiously looking for
it, I committed two small fooleries which other young gentlemen in my
circumstances might have committed--because they came so very natural
to me. But oh! when I DID find the house, and DID dismount at the
garden-gate, and drag those stony-hearted boots across the lawn to Dora
sitting on a garden-seat under a lilac tree, what a spectacle she was,
upon that beautiful morning, among the butterflies, in a white chip
bonnet and a dress of celestial blue! There was a young lady with
her--comparatively stricken in years--almost twenty, I should say. Her
name was Miss Mills. And Dora called her Julia. She was the bosom friend
of Dora. Happy Miss Mills!

Jip was there, and Jip WOULD bark at me again. When I presented my
bouquet, he gnashed his teeth with jealousy. Well he might. If he had
the least idea how I adored his mistress, well he might!

'Oh, thank you, Mr. Copperfield! What dear flowers! ' said Dora.

I had had an intention of saying (and had been studying the best form of
words for three miles) that I thought them beautiful before I saw them
so near HER. But I couldn't manage it. She was too bewildering. To see
her lay the flowers against her little dimpled chin, was to lose all
presence of mind and power of language in a feeble ecstasy. I wonder I
didn't say, 'Kill me, if you have a heart, Miss Mills. Let me die here! '

Then Dora held my flowers to Jip to smell. Then Jip growled, and
wouldn't smell them. Then Dora laughed, and held them a little closer
to Jip, to make him. Then Jip laid hold of a bit of geranium with his
teeth, and worried imaginary cats in it. Then Dora beat him, and pouted,
and said, 'My poor beautiful flowers! ' as compassionately, I thought, as
if Jip had laid hold of me. I wished he had!

'You'll be so glad to hear, Mr. Copperfield,' said Dora, 'that that
cross Miss Murdstone is not here. She has gone to her brother's
marriage, and will be away at least three weeks. Isn't that delightful? '

I said I was sure it must be delightful to her, and all that was
delightful to her was delightful to me. Miss Mills, with an air of
superior wisdom and benevolence, smiled upon us.

'She is the most disagreeable thing I ever saw,' said Dora. 'You can't
believe how ill-tempered and shocking she is, Julia. '

'Yes, I can, my dear! ' said Julia.

'YOU can, perhaps, love,' returned Dora, with her hand on julia's.
'Forgive my not excepting you, my dear, at first. '

I learnt, from this, that Miss Mills had had her trials in the course
of a chequered existence; and that to these, perhaps, I might refer that
wise benignity of manner which I had already noticed. I found, in
the course of the day, that this was the case: Miss Mills having been
unhappy in a misplaced affection, and being understood to have retired
from the world on her awful stock of experience, but still to take a
calm interest in the unblighted hopes and loves of youth.

But now Mr. Spenlow came out of the house, and Dora went to him,
saying, 'Look, papa, what beautiful flowers! ' And Miss Mills smiled
thoughtfully, as who should say, 'Ye Mayflies, enjoy your brief
existence in the bright morning of life! ' And we all walked from the
lawn towards the carriage, which was getting ready.

I shall never have such a ride again. I have never had such another.
There were only those three, their hamper, my hamper, and the
guitar-case, in the phaeton; and, of course, the phaeton was open; and
I rode behind it, and Dora sat with her back to the horses, looking
towards me. She kept the bouquet close to her on the cushion, and
wouldn't allow Jip to sit on that side of her at all, for fear he should
crush it. She often carried it in her hand, often refreshed herself
with its fragrance. Our eyes at those times often met; and my great
astonishment is that I didn't go over the head of my gallant grey into
the carriage.

There was dust, I believe. There was a good deal of dust, I believe. I
have a faint impression that Mr. Spenlow remonstrated with me for riding
in it; but I knew of none. I was sensible of a mist of love and beauty
about Dora, but of nothing else. He stood up sometimes, and asked me
what I thought of the prospect. I said it was delightful, and I dare
say it was; but it was all Dora to me. The sun shone Dora, and the birds
sang Dora. The south wind blew Dora, and the wild flowers in the hedges
were all Doras, to a bud. My comfort is, Miss Mills understood me. Miss
Mills alone could enter into my feelings thoroughly.

I don't know how long we were going, and to this hour I know as little
where we went. Perhaps it was near Guildford. Perhaps some Arabian-night
magician, opened up the place for the day, and shut it up for ever when
we came away. It was a green spot, on a hill, carpeted with soft turf.
There were shady trees, and heather, and, as far as the eye could see, a
rich landscape.

It was a trying thing to find people here, waiting for us; and my
jealousy, even of the ladies, knew no bounds. But all of my own
sex--especially one impostor, three or four years my elder, with a red
whisker, on which he established an amount of presumption not to be
endured--were my mortal foes.

We all unpacked our baskets, and employed ourselves in getting dinner
ready. Red Whisker pretended he could make a salad (which I don't
believe), and obtruded himself on public notice. Some of the young
ladies washed the lettuces for him, and sliced them under his
directions. Dora was among these. I felt that fate had pitted me against
this man, and one of us must fall.

Red Whisker made his salad (I wondered how they could eat it. Nothing
should have induced ME to touch it! ) and voted himself into the charge
of the wine-cellar, which he constructed, being an ingenious beast, in
the hollow trunk of a tree. By and by, I saw him, with the majority of a
lobster on his plate, eating his dinner at the feet of Dora!

I have but an indistinct idea of what happened for some time after this
baleful object presented itself to my view. I was very merry, I know;
but it was hollow merriment. I attached myself to a young creature in
pink, with little eyes, and flirted with her desperately. She received
my attentions with favour; but whether on my account solely, or because
she had any designs on Red Whisker, I can't say. Dora's health was
drunk. When I drank it, I affected to interrupt my conversation for that
purpose, and to resume it immediately afterwards. I caught Dora's eye as
I bowed to her, and I thought it looked appealing. But it looked at me
over the head of Red Whisker, and I was adamant.

The young creature in pink had a mother in green; and I rather think the
latter separated us from motives of policy. Howbeit, there was a general
breaking up of the party, while the remnants of the dinner were being
put away; and I strolled off by myself among the trees, in a raging and
remorseful state. I was debating whether I should pretend that I was not
well, and fly--I don't know where--upon my gallant grey, when Dora and
Miss Mills met me.

'Mr. Copperfield,' said Miss Mills, 'you are dull. '

I begged her pardon. Not at all.

'And Dora,' said Miss Mills, 'YOU are dull. '

Oh dear no! Not in the least.

'Mr. Copperfield and Dora,' said Miss Mills, with an almost venerable
air. 'Enough of this. Do not allow a trivial misunderstanding to wither
the blossoms of spring, which, once put forth and blighted, cannot be
renewed. I speak,' said Miss Mills, 'from experience of the past--the
remote, irrevocable past. The gushing fountains which sparkle in the
sun, must not be stopped in mere caprice; the oasis in the desert of
Sahara must not be plucked up idly. '

I hardly knew what I did, I was burning all over to that extraordinary
extent; but I took Dora's little hand and kissed it--and she let me!
I kissed Miss Mills's hand; and we all seemed, to my thinking, to go
straight up to the seventh heaven. We did not come down again. We stayed
up there all the evening. At first we strayed to and fro among the
trees: I with Dora's shy arm drawn through mine: and Heaven knows,
folly as it all was, it would have been a happy fate to have been struck
immortal with those foolish feelings, and have stayed among the trees
for ever!

But, much too soon, we heard the others laughing and talking, and
calling 'where's Dora? ' So we went back, and they wanted Dora to sing.
Red Whisker would have got the guitar-case out of the carriage, but Dora
told him nobody knew where it was, but I. So Red Whisker was done for
in a moment; and I got it, and I unlocked it, and I took the guitar out,
and I sat by her, and I held her handkerchief and gloves, and I drank in
every note of her dear voice, and she sang to ME who loved her, and all
the others might applaud as much as they liked, but they had nothing to
do with it!

I was intoxicated with joy. I was afraid it was too happy to be real,
and that I should wake in Buckingham Street presently, and hear Mrs.
Crupp clinking the teacups in getting breakfast ready. But Dora sang,
and others sang, and Miss Mills sang--about the slumbering echoes in the
caverns of Memory; as if she were a hundred years old--and the evening
came on; and we had tea, with the kettle boiling gipsy-fashion; and I
was still as happy as ever.

I was happier than ever when the party broke up, and the other people,
defeated Red Whisker and all, went their several ways, and we went ours
through the still evening and the dying light, with sweet scents
rising up around us. Mr. Spenlow being a little drowsy after the
champagne--honour to the soil that grew the grape, to the grape that
made the wine, to the sun that ripened it, and to the merchant who
adulterated it! --and being fast asleep in a corner of the carriage, I
rode by the side and talked to Dora. She admired my horse and patted
him--oh, what a dear little hand it looked upon a horse! --and her shawl
would not keep right, and now and then I drew it round her with my arm;
and I even fancied that Jip began to see how it was, and to understand
that he must make up his mind to be friends with me.

That sagacious Miss Mills, too; that amiable, though quite used up,
recluse; that little patriarch of something less than twenty, who had
done with the world, and mustn't on any account have the slumbering
echoes in the caverns of Memory awakened; what a kind thing she did!

'Mr. Copperfield,' said Miss Mills, 'come to this side of the carriage a
moment--if you can spare a moment. I want to speak to you. '

Behold me, on my gallant grey, bending at the side of Miss Mills, with
my hand upon the carriage door!

'Dora is coming to stay with me. She is coming home with me the day
after tomorrow. If you would like to call, I am sure papa would be
happy to see you. ' What could I do but invoke a silent blessing on Miss
Mills's head, and store Miss Mills's address in the securest corner of
my memory! What could I do but tell Miss Mills, with grateful looks
and fervent words, how much I appreciated her good offices, and what an
inestimable value I set upon her friendship!

Then Miss Mills benignantly dismissed me, saying, 'Go back to Dora! ' and
I went; and Dora leaned out of the carriage to talk to me, and we talked
all the rest of the way; and I rode my gallant grey so close to the
wheel that I grazed his near fore leg against it, and 'took the bark
off', as his owner told me, 'to the tune of three pun' sivin'--which I
paid, and thought extremely cheap for so much joy. What time Miss Mills
sat looking at the moon, murmuring verses--and recalling, I suppose, the
ancient days when she and earth had anything in common.

Norwood was many miles too near, and we reached it many hours too soon;
but Mr. Spenlow came to himself a little short of it, and said,
'You must come in, Copperfield, and rest! ' and I consenting, we had
sandwiches and wine-and-water. In the light room, Dora blushing looked
so lovely, that I could not tear myself away, but sat there staring, in
a dream, until the snoring of Mr. Spenlow inspired me with sufficient
consciousness to take my leave. So we parted; I riding all the way
to London with the farewell touch of Dora's hand still light on mine,
recalling every incident and word ten thousand times; lying down in my
own bed at last, as enraptured a young noodle as ever was carried out of
his five wits by love.

When I awoke next morning, I was resolute to declare my passion to Dora,
and know my fate. Happiness or misery was now the question. There was no
other question that I knew of in the world, and only Dora could give the
answer to it. I passed three days in a luxury of wretchedness, torturing
myself by putting every conceivable variety of discouraging construction
on all that ever had taken place between Dora and me. At last, arrayed
for the purpose at a vast expense, I went to Miss Mills's, fraught with
a declaration.

How many times I went up and down the street, and round the
square--painfully aware of being a much better answer to the old riddle
than the original one--before I could persuade myself to go up the steps
and knock, is no matter now. Even when, at last, I had knocked, and was
waiting at the door, I had some flurried thought of asking if that
were Mr. Blackboy's (in imitation of poor Barkis), begging pardon, and
retreating. But I kept my ground.

Mr. Mills was not at home. I did not expect he would be. Nobody wanted
HIM. Miss Mills was at home. Miss Mills would do.

I was shown into a room upstairs, where Miss Mills and Dora were. Jip
was there. Miss Mills was copying music (I recollect, it was a new song,
called 'Affection's Dirge'), and Dora was painting flowers. What were my
feelings, when I recognized my own flowers; the identical Covent Garden
Market purchase! I cannot say that they were very like, or that
they particularly resembled any flowers that have ever come under my
observation; but I knew from the paper round them which was accurately
copied, what the composition was.

Miss Mills was very glad to see me, and very sorry her papa was not at
home: though I thought we all bore that with fortitude. Miss Mills was
conversational for a few minutes, and then, laying down her pen upon
'Affection's Dirge', got up, and left the room.

I began to think I would put it off till tomorrow.

'I hope your poor horse was not tired, when he got home at night,' said
Dora, lifting up her beautiful eyes. 'It was a long way for him.