No More Learning

'Far from it,' assented Miss Murdstone. 'I do not wish to revive
the memory of past differences, or of past outrages. I have received
outrages from a person--a female I am sorry to say, for the credit of my
sex--who is not to be mentioned without scorn and disgust; and therefore
I would rather not mention her. '

I felt very fiery on my aunt's account; but I said it would certainly be
better, if Miss Murdstone pleased, not to mention her. I could not hear
her disrespectfully mentioned, I added, without expressing my opinion in
a decided tone.

Miss Murdstone shut her eyes, and disdainfully inclined her head; then,
slowly opening her eyes, resumed:

'David Copperfield, I shall not attempt to disguise the fact, that I
formed an unfavourable opinion of you in your childhood. It may have
been a mistaken one, or you may have ceased to justify it. That is not
in question between us now. I belong to a family remarkable, I believe,
for some firmness; and I am not the creature of circumstance or change.
I may have my opinion of you. You may have your opinion of me. '

I inclined my head, in my turn.

'But it is not necessary,' said Miss Murdstone, 'that these opinions
should come into collision here. Under existing circumstances, it is as
well on all accounts that they should not. As the chances of life have
brought us together again, and may bring us together on other occasions,
I would say, let us meet here as distant acquaintances. Family
circumstances are a sufficient reason for our only meeting on that
footing, and it is quite unnecessary that either of us should make the
other the subject of remark. Do you approve of this? '

'Miss Murdstone,' I returned, 'I think you and Mr. Murdstone used me
very cruelly, and treated my mother with great unkindness. I shall
always think so, as long as I live. But I quite agree in what you
propose. '

Miss Murdstone shut her eyes again, and bent her head. Then, just
touching the back of my hand with the tips of her cold, stiff fingers,
she walked away, arranging the little fetters on her wrists and round
her neck; which seemed to be the same set, in exactly the same state,
as when I had seen her last. These reminded me, in reference to Miss
Murdstone's nature, of the fetters over a jail door; suggesting on the
outside, to all beholders, what was to be expected within.

All I know of the rest of the evening is, that I heard the empress of
my heart sing enchanted ballads in the French language, generally to the
effect that, whatever was the matter, we ought always to dance, Ta ra
la, Ta ra la! accompanying herself on a glorified instrument, resembling
a guitar. That I was lost in blissful delirium. That I refused
refreshment. That my soul recoiled from punch particularly. That when
Miss Murdstone took her into custody and led her away, she smiled and
gave me her delicious hand. That I caught a view of myself in a mirror,
looking perfectly imbecile and idiotic. That I retired to bed in a most
maudlin state of mind, and got up in a crisis of feeble infatuation.

It was a fine morning, and early, and I thought I would go and take a
stroll down one of those wire-arched walks, and indulge my passion by
dwelling on her image. On my way through the hall, I encountered her
little dog, who was called Jip--short for Gipsy. I approached him
tenderly, for I loved even him; but he showed his whole set of teeth,
got under a chair expressly to snarl, and wouldn't hear of the least
familiarity.

The garden was cool and solitary. I walked about, wondering what my
feelings of happiness would be, if I could ever become engaged to this
dear wonder. As to marriage, and fortune, and all that, I believe I was
almost as innocently undesigning then, as when I loved little Em'ly. To
be allowed to call her 'Dora', to write to her, to dote upon and worship
her, to have reason to think that when she was with other people she was
yet mindful of me, seemed to me the summit of human ambition--I am
sure it was the summit of mine. There is no doubt whatever that I was
a lackadaisical young spooney; but there was a purity of heart in all
this, that prevents my having quite a contemptuous recollection of it,
let me laugh as I may.

I had not been walking long, when I turned a corner, and met her. I
tingle again from head to foot as my recollection turns that corner, and
my pen shakes in my hand.

'You--are--out early, Miss Spenlow,' said I.

'It's so stupid at home,' she replied, 'and Miss Murdstone is so absurd!
She talks such nonsense about its being necessary for the day to be
aired, before I come out. Aired! ' (She laughed, here, in the most
melodious manner. ) 'On a Sunday morning, when I don't practise, I must
do something. So I told papa last night I must come out. Besides, it's
the brightest time of the whole day. Don't you think so? '

I hazarded a bold flight, and said (not without stammering) that it
was very bright to me then, though it had been very dark to me a minute
before.

'Do you mean a compliment? ' said Dora, 'or that the weather has really
changed? '

I stammered worse than before, in replying that I meant no compliment,
but the plain truth; though I was not aware of any change having taken
place in the weather. It was in the state of my own feelings, I added
bashfully: to clench the explanation.

I never saw such curls--how could I, for there never were such
curls! --as those she shook out to hide her blushes. As to the straw hat
and blue ribbons which was on the top of the curls, if I could only have
hung it up in my room in Buckingham Street, what a priceless possession
it would have been!

'You have just come home from Paris,' said I.

'Yes,' said she. 'Have you ever been there? '

'No. '

'Oh! I hope you'll go soon! You would like it so much! '

Traces of deep-seated anguish appeared in my countenance. That she
should hope I would go, that she should think it possible I could go,
was insupportable. I depreciated Paris; I depreciated France. I said I
wouldn't leave England, under existing circumstances, for any earthly
consideration. Nothing should induce me. In short, she was shaking the
curls again, when the little dog came running along the walk to our
relief.

He was mortally jealous of me, and persisted in barking at me. She took
him up in her arms--oh my goodness! --and caressed him, but he persisted
upon barking still. He wouldn't let me touch him, when I tried; and then
she beat him. It increased my sufferings greatly to see the pats she
gave him for punishment on the bridge of his blunt nose, while he winked
his eyes, and licked her hand, and still growled within himself like a
little double-bass. At length he was quiet--well he might be with her
dimpled chin upon his head! --and we walked away to look at a greenhouse.

'You are not very intimate with Miss Murdstone, are you? ' said Dora.
--'My pet. '

(The two last words were to the dog. Oh, if they had only been to me! )

'No,' I replied. 'Not at all so. '

'She is a tiresome creature,' said Dora, pouting. 'I can't think what
papa can have been about, when he chose such a vexatious thing to be my
companion. Who wants a protector? I am sure I don't want a protector.
Jip can protect me a great deal better than Miss Murdstone,--can't you,
Jip, dear? '

He only winked lazily, when she kissed his ball of a head.

'Papa calls her my confidential friend, but I am sure she is no such
thing--is she, Jip? We are not going to confide in any such cross
people, Jip and I. We mean to bestow our confidence where we like,
and to find out our own friends, instead of having them found out for
us--don't we, Jip? '

Jip made a comfortable noise, in answer, a little like a tea-kettle when
it sings. As for me, every word was a new heap of fetters, riveted above
the last.

'It is very hard, because we have not a kind Mama, that we are to have,
instead, a sulky, gloomy old thing like Miss Murdstone, always following
us about--isn't it, Jip? Never mind, Jip. We won't be confidential, and
we'll make ourselves as happy as we can in spite of her, and we'll tease
her, and not please her--won't we, Jip? '

If it had lasted any longer, I think I must have gone down on my knees
on the gravel, with the probability before me of grazing them, and of
being presently ejected from the premises besides. But, by good fortune
the greenhouse was not far off, and these words brought us to it.

It contained quite a show of beautiful geraniums. We loitered along in
front of them, and Dora often stopped to admire this one or that one,
and I stopped to admire the same one, and Dora, laughing, held the dog
up childishly, to smell the flowers; and if we were not all three in
Fairyland, certainly I was. The scent of a geranium leaf, at this day,
strikes me with a half comical half serious wonder as to what change has
come over me in a moment; and then I see a straw hat and blue ribbons,
and a quantity of curls, and a little black dog being held up, in two
slender arms, against a bank of blossoms and bright leaves.

Miss Murdstone had been looking for us. She found us here; and presented
her uncongenial cheek, the little wrinkles in it filled with hair
powder, to Dora to be kissed. Then she took Dora's arm in hers, and
marched us into breakfast as if it were a soldier's funeral.

How many cups of tea I drank, because Dora made it, I don't know. But,
I perfectly remember that I sat swilling tea until my whole nervous
system, if I had had any in those days, must have gone by the board. By
and by we went to church. Miss Murdstone was between Dora and me in the
pew; but I heard her sing, and the congregation vanished. A sermon was
delivered--about Dora, of course--and I am afraid that is all I know of
the service.

We had a quiet day. No company, a walk, a family dinner of four, and an
evening of looking over books and pictures; Miss Murdstone with a homily
before her, and her eye upon us, keeping guard vigilantly. Ah! little
did Mr. Spenlow imagine, when he sat opposite to me after dinner that
day, with his pocket-handkerchief over his head, how fervently I was
embracing him, in my fancy, as his son-in-law! Little did he think, when
I took leave of him at night, that he had just given his full consent to
my being engaged to Dora, and that I was invoking blessings on his head!

We departed early in the morning, for we had a Salvage case coming on in
the Admiralty Court, requiring a rather accurate knowledge of the whole
science of navigation, in which (as we couldn't be expected to know
much about those matters in the Commons) the judge had entreated two old
Trinity Masters, for charity's sake, to come and help him out. Dora was
at the breakfast-table to make the tea again, however; and I had the
melancholy pleasure of taking off my hat to her in the phaeton, as she
stood on the door-step with Jip in her arms.

What the Admiralty was to me that day; what nonsense I made of our case
in my mind, as I listened to it; how I saw 'DORA' engraved upon the
blade of the silver oar which they lay upon the table, as the emblem
of that high jurisdiction; and how I felt when Mr. Spenlow went home
without me (I had had an insane hope that he might take me back again),
as if I were a mariner myself, and the ship to which I belonged had
sailed away and left me on a desert island; I shall make no fruitless
effort to describe. If that sleepy old court could rouse itself, and
present in any visible form the daydreams I have had in it about Dora,
it would reveal my truth.

I don't mean the dreams that I dreamed on that day alone, but day after
day, from week to week, and term to term. I went there, not to attend to
what was going on, but to think about Dora. If ever I bestowed a thought
upon the cases, as they dragged their slow length before me, it was only
to wonder, in the matrimonial cases (remembering Dora), how it was
that married people could ever be otherwise than happy; and, in the
Prerogative cases, to consider, if the money in question had been left
to me, what were the foremost steps I should immediately have taken
in regard to Dora. Within the first week of my passion, I bought four
sumptuous waistcoats--not for myself; I had no pride in them; for
Dora--and took to wearing straw-coloured kid gloves in the streets, and
laid the foundations of all the corns I have ever had. If the boots I
wore at that period could only be produced and compared with the natural
size of my feet, they would show what the state of my heart was, in a
most affecting manner.

And yet, wretched cripple as I made myself by this act of homage to
Dora, I walked miles upon miles daily in the hope of seeing her. Not
only was I soon as well known on the Norwood Road as the postmen on that
beat, but I pervaded London likewise. I walked about the streets where
the best shops for ladies were, I haunted the Bazaar like an unquiet
spirit, I fagged through the Park again and again, long after I was
quite knocked up. Sometimes, at long intervals and on rare occasions, I
saw her. Perhaps I saw her glove waved in a carriage window; perhaps I
met her, walked with her and Miss Murdstone a little way, and spoke to
her. In the latter case I was always very miserable afterwards, to think
that I had said nothing to the purpose; or that she had no idea of the
extent of my devotion, or that she cared nothing about me. I was always
looking out, as may be supposed, for another invitation to Mr. Spenlow's
house. I was always being disappointed, for I got none.

Mrs. Crupp must have been a woman of penetration; for when this
attachment was but a few weeks old, and I had not had the courage
to write more explicitly even to Agnes, than that I had been to Mr.
Spenlow's house, 'whose family,' I added, 'consists of one daughter';--I
say Mrs. Crupp must have been a woman of penetration, for, even in that
early stage, she found it out. She came up to me one evening, when I
was very low, to ask (she being then afflicted with the disorder I have
mentioned) if I could oblige her with a little tincture of cardamums
mixed with rhubarb, and flavoured with seven drops of the essence of
cloves, which was the best remedy for her complaint;--or, if I had not
such a thing by me, with a little brandy, which was the next best. It
was not, she remarked, so palatable to her, but it was the next best. As
I had never even heard of the first remedy, and always had the second in
the closet, I gave Mrs. Crupp a glass of the second, which (that I might
have no suspicion of its being devoted to any improper use) she began to
take in my presence.

'Cheer up, sir,' said Mrs. Crupp. 'I can't abear to see you so, sir: I'm
a mother myself. '

I did not quite perceive the application of this fact to myself, but I
smiled on Mrs. Crupp, as benignly as was in my power.

'Come, sir,' said Mrs. Crupp. 'Excuse me. I know what it is, sir.
There's a lady in the case. '

'Mrs. Crupp? ' I returned, reddening.

'Oh, bless you! Keep a good heart, sir! ' said Mrs. Crupp, nodding
encouragement. 'Never say die, sir! If She don't smile upon you,
there's a many as will. You are a young gentleman to be smiled on, Mr.
Copperfull, and you must learn your walue, sir. '

Mrs. Crupp always called me Mr. Copperfull: firstly, no doubt, because
it was not my name; and secondly, I am inclined to think, in some
indistinct association with a washing-day.

'What makes you suppose there is any young lady in the case, Mrs.
Crupp? ' said I.

'Mr. Copperfull,' said Mrs. Crupp, with a great deal of feeling, 'I'm a
mother myself. '

For some time Mrs. Crupp could only lay her hand upon her nankeen bosom,
and fortify herself against returning pain with sips of her medicine. At
length she spoke again.

'When the present set were took for you by your dear aunt, Mr.
Copperfull,' said Mrs. Crupp, 'my remark were, I had now found summun
I could care for. "Thank Ev'in! " were the expression, "I have now found
summun I can care for! "--You don't eat enough, sir, nor yet drink. '

'Is that what you found your supposition on, Mrs. Crupp? ' said I.

'Sir,' said Mrs. Crupp, in a tone approaching to severity, 'I've
laundressed other young gentlemen besides yourself. A young gentleman
may be over-careful of himself, or he may be under-careful of himself.
He may brush his hair too regular, or too un-regular. He may wear his
boots much too large for him, or much too small. That is according as
the young gentleman has his original character formed. But let him go to
which extreme he may, sir, there's a young lady in both of 'em. '

Mrs. Crupp shook her head in such a determined manner, that I had not an
inch of vantage-ground left.

'It was but the gentleman which died here before yourself,' said Mrs.
Crupp, 'that fell in love--with a barmaid--and had his waistcoats took
in directly, though much swelled by drinking. '

'Mrs.
Crupp,' said I, 'I must beg you not to connect the young lady in
my case with a barmaid, or anything of that sort, if you please. '

'Mr. Copperfull,' returned Mrs. Crupp, 'I'm a mother myself, and not
likely. I ask your pardon, sir, if I intrude. I should never wish to
intrude where I were not welcome. But you are a young gentleman, Mr.
Copperfull, and my adwice to you is, to cheer up, sir, to keep a good
heart, and to know your own walue. If you was to take to something,
sir,' said Mrs. Crupp, 'if you was to take to skittles, now, which is
healthy, you might find it divert your mind, and do you good. '

With these words, Mrs. Crupp, affecting to be very careful of the
brandy--which was all gone--thanked me with a majestic curtsey, and
retired. As her figure disappeared into the gloom of the entry, this
counsel certainly presented itself to my mind in the light of a slight
liberty on Mrs. Crupp's part; but, at the same time, I was content
to receive it, in another point of view, as a word to the wise, and a
warning in future to keep my secret better.



CHAPTER 27. TOMMY TRADDLES


It may have been in consequence of Mrs. Crupp's advice, and, perhaps,
for no better reason than because there was a certain similarity in the
sound of the word skittles and Traddles, that it came into my head, next
day, to go and look after Traddles. The time he had mentioned was more
than out, and he lived in a little street near the Veterinary College
at Camden Town, which was principally tenanted, as one of our clerks who
lived in that direction informed me, by gentlemen students, who bought
live donkeys, and made experiments on those quadrupeds in their private
apartments. Having obtained from this clerk a direction to the academic
grove in question, I set out, the same afternoon, to visit my old
schoolfellow.

I found that the street was not as desirable a one as I could have
wished it to be, for the sake of Traddles. The inhabitants appeared to
have a propensity to throw any little trifles they were not in want of,
into the road: which not only made it rank and sloppy, but untidy too,
on account of the cabbage-leaves. The refuse was not wholly vegetable
either, for I myself saw a shoe, a doubled-up saucepan, a black bonnet,
and an umbrella, in various stages of decomposition, as I was looking
out for the number I wanted.

The general air of the place reminded me forcibly of the days when I
lived with Mr. and Mrs. Micawber. An indescribable character of faded
gentility that attached to the house I sought, and made it unlike
all the other houses in the street--though they were all built on one
monotonous pattern, and looked like the early copies of a blundering boy
who was learning to make houses, and had not yet got out of his cramped
brick-and-mortar pothooks--reminded me still more of Mr. and Mrs.
Micawber. Happening to arrive at the door as it was opened to the
afternoon milkman, I was reminded of Mr. and Mrs. Micawber more forcibly
yet.

'Now,' said the milkman to a very youthful servant girl. 'Has that there
little bill of mine been heerd on? '

'Oh, master says he'll attend to it immediate,' was the reply.

'Because,' said the milkman, going on as if he had received no answer,
and speaking, as I judged from his tone, rather for the edification of
somebody within the house, than of the youthful servant--an
impression which was strengthened by his manner of glaring down the
passage--'because that there little bill has been running so long, that
I begin to believe it's run away altogether, and never won't be heerd
of. Now, I'm not a going to stand it, you know! ' said the milkman, still
throwing his voice into the house, and glaring down the passage.

As to his dealing in the mild article of milk, by the by, there never
was a greater anomaly. His deportment would have been fierce in a
butcher or a brandy-merchant.

The voice of the youthful servant became faint, but she seemed to me,
from the action of her lips, again to murmur that it would be attended
to immediate.

'I tell you what,' said the milkman, looking hard at her for the first
time, and taking her by the chin, 'are you fond of milk? '

'Yes, I likes it,' she replied. 'Good,' said the milkman. 'Then you
won't have none tomorrow. D'ye hear? Not a fragment of milk you won't
have tomorrow. '

I thought she seemed, upon the whole, relieved by the prospect of having
any today. The milkman, after shaking his head at her darkly, released
her chin, and with anything rather than good-will opened his can, and
deposited the usual quantity in the family jug. This done, he went away,
muttering, and uttered the cry of his trade next door, in a vindictive
shriek.

'Does Mr. Traddles live here? ' I then inquired.

A mysterious voice from the end of the passage replied 'Yes. ' Upon which
the youthful servant replied 'Yes. '

'Is he at home? ' said I.

Again the mysterious voice replied in the affirmative, and again the
servant echoed it. Upon this, I walked in, and in pursuance of the
servant's directions walked upstairs; conscious, as I passed the
back parlour-door, that I was surveyed by a mysterious eye, probably
belonging to the mysterious voice.

When I got to the top of the stairs--the house was only a story high
above the ground floor--Traddles was on the landing to meet me. He was
delighted to see me, and gave me welcome, with great heartiness, to
his little room. It was in the front of the house, and extremely neat,
though sparely furnished. It was his only room, I saw; for there was a
sofa-bedstead in it, and his blacking-brushes and blacking were among
his books--on the top shelf, behind a dictionary. His table was covered
with papers, and he was hard at work in an old coat. I looked at
nothing, that I know of, but I saw everything, even to the prospect of
a church upon his china inkstand, as I sat down--and this, too, was a
faculty confirmed in me in the old Micawber times. Various ingenious
arrangements he had made, for the disguise of his chest of drawers,
and the accommodation of his boots, his shaving-glass, and so forth,
particularly impressed themselves upon me, as evidences of the same
Traddles who used to make models of elephants' dens in writing-paper to
put flies in; and to comfort himself under ill usage, with the memorable
works of art I have so often mentioned.

In a corner of the room was something neatly covered up with a large
white cloth. I could not make out what that was.

'Traddles,' said I, shaking hands with him again, after I had sat down,
'I am delighted to see you. '

'I am delighted to see YOU, Copperfield,' he returned. 'I am very glad
indeed to see you. It was because I was thoroughly glad to see you when
we met in Ely Place, and was sure you were thoroughly glad to see me,
that I gave you this address instead of my address at chambers. ' 'Oh!
You have chambers? ' said I.

'Why, I have the fourth of a room and a passage, and the fourth of a
clerk,' returned Traddles. 'Three others and myself unite to have a
set of chambers--to look business-like--and we quarter the clerk too.
Half-a-crown a week he costs me. '

His old simple character and good temper, and something of his old
unlucky fortune also, I thought, smiled at me in the smile with which he
made this explanation.

'It's not because I have the least pride, Copperfield, you understand,'
said Traddles, 'that I don't usually give my address here. It's only on
account of those who come to me, who might not like to come here. For
myself, I am fighting my way on in the world against difficulties, and
it would be ridiculous if I made a pretence of doing anything else. '

'You are reading for the bar, Mr. Waterbrook informed me? ' said I.

'Why, yes,' said Traddles, rubbing his hands slowly over one another. 'I
am reading for the bar. The fact is, I have just begun to keep my terms,
after rather a long delay. It's some time since I was articled, but the
payment of that hundred pounds was a great pull. A great pull! ' said
Traddles, with a wince, as if he had had a tooth out.

'Do you know what I can't help thinking of, Traddles, as I sit here
looking at you? ' I asked him.

'No,' said he.

'That sky-blue suit you used to wear. '

'Lord, to be sure! ' cried Traddles, laughing. 'Tight in the arms and
legs, you know? Dear me! Well! Those were happy times, weren't they? '

'I think our schoolmaster might have made them happier, without doing
any harm to any of us, I acknowledge,' I returned.

'Perhaps he might,' said Traddles. 'But dear me, there was a good deal
of fun going on. Do you remember the nights in the bedroom? When we used
to have the suppers? And when you used to tell the stories? Ha, ha,
ha! And do you remember when I got caned for crying about Mr. Mell? Old
Creakle! I should like to see him again, too! '

'He was a brute to you, Traddles,' said I, indignantly; for his good
humour made me feel as if I had seen him beaten but yesterday.

'Do you think so? ' returned Traddles. 'Really? Perhaps he was rather.
But it's all over, a long while. Old Creakle! '

'You were brought up by an uncle, then? ' said I.

'Of course I was! ' said Traddles. 'The one I was always going to write
to. And always didn't, eh! Ha, ha, ha! Yes, I had an uncle then. He died
soon after I left school. '

'Indeed! '

'Yes. He was a retired--what do you call
it! --draper--cloth-merchant--and had made me his heir. But he didn't
like me when I grew up. '

'Do you really mean that? ' said I. He was so composed, that I fancied he
must have some other meaning.

'Oh dear, yes, Copperfield! I mean it,' replied Traddles. 'It was an
unfortunate thing, but he didn't like me at all. He said I wasn't at all
what he expected, and so he married his housekeeper. '

'And what did you do? ' I asked.

'I didn't do anything in particular,' said Traddles. 'I lived with them,
waiting to be put out in the world, until his gout unfortunately flew
to his stomach--and so he died, and so she married a young man, and so I
wasn't provided for. '

'Did you get nothing, Traddles, after all? '

'Oh dear, yes! ' said Traddles. 'I got fifty pounds. I had never been
brought up to any profession, and at first I was at a loss what to
do for myself. However, I began, with the assistance of the son of a
professional man, who had been to Salem House--Yawler, with his nose on
one side. Do you recollect him? '

No. He had not been there with me; all the noses were straight in my
day.

'It don't matter,' said Traddles. 'I began, by means of his assistance,
to copy law writings. That didn't answer very well; and then I began to
state cases for them, and make abstracts, and that sort of work. For
I am a plodding kind of fellow, Copperfield, and had learnt the way of
doing such things pithily. Well! That put it in my head to enter myself
as a law student; and that ran away with all that was left of the fifty
pounds. Yawler recommended me to one or two other offices, however--Mr.
Waterbrook's for one--and I got a good many jobs. I was fortunate
enough, too, to become acquainted with a person in the publishing way,
who was getting up an Encyclopaedia, and he set me to work; and, indeed'
(glancing at his table), 'I am at work for him at this minute. I am not
a bad compiler, Copperfield,' said Traddles, preserving the same air of
cheerful confidence in all he said, 'but I have no invention at all; not
a particle. I suppose there never was a young man with less originality
than I have. '

As Traddles seemed to expect that I should assent to this as a matter
of course, I nodded; and he went on, with the same sprightly patience--I
can find no better expression--as before.

'So, by little and little, and not living high, I managed to scrape up
the hundred pounds at last,' said Traddles; 'and thank Heaven that's
paid--though it was--though it certainly was,' said Traddles, wincing
again as if he had had another tooth out, 'a pull. I am living by the
sort of work I have mentioned, still, and I hope, one of these days, to
get connected with some newspaper: which would almost be the making of
my fortune. Now, Copperfield, you are so exactly what you used to
be, with that agreeable face, and it's so pleasant to see you, that I
sha'n't conceal anything. Therefore you must know that I am engaged. '

Engaged! Oh, Dora!

'She is a curate's daughter,' said Traddles; 'one of ten, down in
Devonshire. Yes! ' For he saw me glance, involuntarily, at the prospect
on the inkstand. 'That's the church! You come round here to the left,
out of this gate,' tracing his finger along the inkstand, 'and exactly
where I hold this pen, there stands the house--facing, you understand,
towards the church. '

The delight with which he entered into these particulars, did not fully
present itself to me until afterwards; for my selfish thoughts were
making a ground-plan of Mr. Spenlow's house and garden at the same
moment.

'She is such a dear girl! ' said Traddles; 'a little older than me, but
the dearest girl! I told you I was going out of town? I have been down
there. I walked there, and I walked back, and I had the most delightful
time! I dare say ours is likely to be a rather long engagement, but our
motto is "Wait and hope! " We always say that. "Wait and hope," we always
say. And she would wait, Copperfield, till she was sixty--any age you
can mention--for me! '

Traddles rose from his chair, and, with a triumphant smile, put his hand
upon the white cloth I had observed.

'However,' he said, 'it's not that we haven't made a beginning towards
housekeeping. No, no; we have begun. We must get on by degrees, but we
have begun. Here,' drawing the cloth off with great pride and care, 'are
two pieces of furniture to commence with. This flower-pot and stand,
she bought herself. You put that in a parlour window,' said Traddles,
falling a little back from it to survey it with the greater admiration,
'with a plant in it, and--and there you are! This little round table
with the marble top (it's two feet ten in circumference), I bought. You
want to lay a book down, you know, or somebody comes to see you or your
wife, and wants a place to stand a cup of tea upon, and--and there you
are again! ' said Traddles. 'It's an admirable piece of workmanship--firm
as a rock! ' I praised them both, highly, and Traddles replaced the
covering as carefully as he had removed it.

'It's not a great deal towards the furnishing,' said Traddles, 'but
it's something. The table-cloths, and pillow-cases, and articles of
that kind, are what discourage me most, Copperfield. So does
the ironmongery--candle-boxes, and gridirons, and that sort of
necessaries--because those things tell, and mount up.