No More Learning

And he was--honourable and manful--for two year
going on, and we was just the same at home here as afore. '

Mr. Peggotty's face, which had varied in its expression with the various
stages of his narrative, now resumed all its former triumphant delight,
as he laid a hand upon my knee and a hand upon Steerforth's (previously
wetting them both, for the greater emphasis of the action), and divided
the following speech between us:

'All of a sudden, one evening--as it might be tonight--comes little
Em'ly from her work, and him with her! There ain't so much in that,
you'll say. No, because he takes care on her, like a brother, arter
dark, and indeed afore dark, and at all times. But this tarpaulin chap,
he takes hold of her hand, and he cries out to me, joyful, "Look here!
This is to be my little wife! " And she says, half bold and half shy, and
half a laughing and half a crying, "Yes, Uncle! If you please. "--If I
please! ' cried Mr. Peggotty, rolling his head in an ecstasy at the idea;
'Lord, as if I should do anythink else! --"If you please, I am steadier
now, and I have thought better of it, and I'll be as good a little wife
as I can to him, for he's a dear, good fellow! " Then Missis Gummidge,
she claps her hands like a play, and you come in. Theer! the murder's
out! ' said Mr. Peggotty--'You come in! It took place this here present
hour; and here's the man that'll marry her, the minute she's out of her
time. '

Ham staggered, as well he might, under the blow Mr. Peggotty dealt
him in his unbounded joy, as a mark of confidence and friendship; but
feeling called upon to say something to us, he said, with much faltering
and great difficulty:

'She warn't no higher than you was, Mas'r Davy--when you first
come--when I thought what she'd grow up to be. I see her grown
up--gent'lmen--like a flower. I'd lay down my life for
her--Mas'r Davy--Oh! most content and cheerful! She's more to
me--gent'lmen--than--she's all to me that ever I can want, and more
than ever I--than ever I could say. I--I love her true. There ain't a
gent'lman in all the land--nor yet sailing upon all the sea--that
can love his lady more than I love her, though there's many a common
man--would say better--what he meant. '

I thought it affecting to see such a sturdy fellow as Ham was now,
trembling in the strength of what he felt for the pretty little creature
who had won his heart. I thought the simple confidence reposed in us by
Mr. Peggotty and by himself, was, in itself, affecting. I was affected
by the story altogether. How far my emotions were influenced by the
recollections of my childhood, I don't know. Whether I had come there
with any lingering fancy that I was still to love little Em'ly, I don't
know. I know that I was filled with pleasure by all this; but, at first,
with an indescribably sensitive pleasure, that a very little would have
changed to pain.

Therefore, if it had depended upon me to touch the prevailing chord
among them with any skill, I should have made a poor hand of it. But it
depended upon Steerforth; and he did it with such address, that in a few
minutes we were all as easy and as happy as it was possible to be.

'Mr. Peggotty,' he said, 'you are a thoroughly good fellow, and deserve
to be as happy as you are tonight. My hand upon it! Ham, I give you
joy, my boy. My hand upon that, too! Daisy, stir the fire, and make it a
brisk one! and Mr. Peggotty, unless you can induce your gentle niece to
come back (for whom I vacate this seat in the corner), I shall go.
Any gap at your fireside on such a night--such a gap least of all--I
wouldn't make, for the wealth of the Indies! '

So Mr. Peggotty went into my old room to fetch little Em'ly. At first
little Em'ly didn't like to come, and then Ham went. Presently they
brought her to the fireside, very much confused, and very shy,--but
she soon became more assured when she found how gently and respectfully
Steerforth spoke to her; how skilfully he avoided anything that would
embarrass her; how he talked to Mr. Peggotty of boats, and ships, and
tides, and fish; how he referred to me about the time when he had seen
Mr. Peggotty at Salem House; how delighted he was with the boat and all
belonging to it; how lightly and easily he carried on, until he brought
us, by degrees, into a charmed circle, and we were all talking away
without any reserve.

Em'ly, indeed, said little all the evening; but she looked, and
listened, and her face got animated, and she was charming. Steerforth
told a story of a dismal shipwreck (which arose out of his talk with Mr.
Peggotty), as if he saw it all before him--and little Em'ly's eyes were
fastened on him all the time, as if she saw it too. He told us a merry
adventure of his own, as a relief to that, with as much gaiety as if the
narrative were as fresh to him as it was to us--and little Em'ly
laughed until the boat rang with the musical sounds, and we all laughed
(Steerforth too), in irresistible sympathy with what was so pleasant and
light-hearted. He got Mr. Peggotty to sing, or rather to roar, 'When
the stormy winds do blow, do blow, do blow'; and he sang a sailor's
song himself, so pathetically and beautifully, that I could have almost
fancied that the real wind creeping sorrowfully round the house, and
murmuring low through our unbroken silence, was there to listen.

As to Mrs. Gummidge, he roused that victim of despondency with a success
never attained by anyone else (so Mr. Peggotty informed me), since
the decease of the old one. He left her so little leisure for being
miserable, that she said next day she thought she must have been
bewitched.

But he set up no monopoly of the general attention, or the conversation.
When little Em'ly grew more courageous, and talked (but still bashfully)
across the fire to me, of our old wanderings upon the beach, to pick up
shells and pebbles; and when I asked her if she recollected how I used
to be devoted to her; and when we both laughed and reddened, casting
these looks back on the pleasant old times, so unreal to look at now; he
was silent and attentive, and observed us thoughtfully. She sat, at this
time, and all the evening, on the old locker in her old little corner
by the fire--Ham beside her, where I used to sit. I could not satisfy
myself whether it was in her own little tormenting way, or in a maidenly
reserve before us, that she kept quite close to the wall, and away from
him; but I observed that she did so, all the evening.

As I remember, it was almost midnight when we took our leave. We had had
some biscuit and dried fish for supper, and Steerforth had produced from
his pocket a full flask of Hollands, which we men (I may say we men,
now, without a blush) had emptied. We parted merrily; and as they all
stood crowded round the door to light us as far as they could upon our
road, I saw the sweet blue eyes of little Em'ly peeping after us, from
behind Ham, and heard her soft voice calling to us to be careful how we
went.

'A most engaging little Beauty! ' said Steerforth, taking my arm. 'Well!
It's a quaint place, and they are quaint company, and it's quite a new
sensation to mix with them. '

'How fortunate we are, too,' I returned, 'to have arrived to witness
their happiness in that intended marriage! I never saw people so happy.
How delightful to see it, and to be made the sharers in their honest
joy, as we have been! '

'That's rather a chuckle-headed fellow for the girl; isn't he? ' said
Steerforth.

He had been so hearty with him, and with them all, that I felt a shock
in this unexpected and cold reply. But turning quickly upon him, and
seeing a laugh in his eyes, I answered, much relieved:

'Ah, Steerforth! It's well for you to joke about the poor! You may
skirmish with Miss Dartle, or try to hide your sympathies in jest from
me, but I know better. When I see how perfectly you understand them, how
exquisitely you can enter into happiness like this plain fisherman's,
or humour a love like my old nurse's, I know that there is not a joy or
sorrow, not an emotion, of such people, that can be indifferent to you.
And I admire and love you for it, Steerforth, twenty times the more! '

He stopped, and, looking in my face, said, 'Daisy, I believe you are
in earnest, and are good. I wish we all were! ' Next moment he was
gaily singing Mr. Peggotty's song, as we walked at a round pace back to
Yarmouth.



CHAPTER 22. SOME OLD SCENES, AND SOME NEW PEOPLE


Steerforth and I stayed for more than a fortnight in that part of the
country. We were very much together, I need not say; but occasionally we
were asunder for some hours at a time. He was a good sailor, and I was
but an indifferent one; and when he went out boating with Mr. Peggotty,
which was a favourite amusement of his, I generally remained ashore. My
occupation of Peggotty's spare-room put a constraint upon me, from which
he was free: for, knowing how assiduously she attended on Mr. Barkis
all day, I did not like to remain out late at night; whereas Steerforth,
lying at the Inn, had nothing to consult but his own humour. Thus it
came about, that I heard of his making little treats for the fishermen
at Mr. Peggotty's house of call, 'The Willing Mind', after I was in bed,
and of his being afloat, wrapped in fishermen's clothes, whole moonlight
nights, and coming back when the morning tide was at flood. By this
time, however, I knew that his restless nature and bold spirits
delighted to find a vent in rough toil and hard weather, as in any other
means of excitement that presented itself freshly to him; so none of his
proceedings surprised me.

Another cause of our being sometimes apart, was, that I had naturally an
interest in going over to Blunderstone, and revisiting the old familiar
scenes of my childhood; while Steerforth, after being there once, had
naturally no great interest in going there again. Hence, on three or
four days that I can at once recall, we went our several ways after an
early breakfast, and met again at a late dinner. I had no idea how he
employed his time in the interval, beyond a general knowledge that
he was very popular in the place, and had twenty means of actively
diverting himself where another man might not have found one.

For my own part, my occupation in my solitary pilgrimages was to recall
every yard of the old road as I went along it, and to haunt the old
spots, of which I never tired. I haunted them, as my memory had often
done, and lingered among them as my younger thoughts had lingered when I
was far away. The grave beneath the tree, where both my parents lay--on
which I had looked out, when it was my father's only, with such curious
feelings of compassion, and by which I had stood, so desolate, when it
was opened to receive my pretty mother and her baby--the grave which
Peggotty's own faithful care had ever since kept neat, and made a garden
of, I walked near, by the hour. It lay a little off the churchyard path,
in a quiet corner, not so far removed but I could read the names
upon the stone as I walked to and fro, startled by the sound of the
church-bell when it struck the hour, for it was like a departed voice to
me. My reflections at these times were always associated with the figure
I was to make in life, and the distinguished things I was to do. My
echoing footsteps went to no other tune, but were as constant to that as
if I had come home to build my castles in the air at a living mother's
side.

There were great changes in my old home. The ragged nests, so long
deserted by the rooks, were gone; and the trees were lopped and topped
out of their remembered shapes. The garden had run wild, and half the
windows of the house were shut up. It was occupied, but only by a poor
lunatic gentleman, and the people who took care of him. He was always
sitting at my little window, looking out into the churchyard; and I
wondered whether his rambling thoughts ever went upon any of the fancies
that used to occupy mine, on the rosy mornings when I peeped out of
that same little window in my night-clothes, and saw the sheep quietly
feeding in the light of the rising sun.

Our old neighbours, Mr. and Mrs. Grayper, were gone to South America,
and the rain had made its way through the roof of their empty house,
and stained the outer walls. Mr. Chillip was married again to a tall,
raw-boned, high-nosed wife; and they had a weazen little baby, with a
heavy head that it couldn't hold up, and two weak staring eyes, with
which it seemed to be always wondering why it had ever been born.

It was with a singular jumble of sadness and pleasure that I used to
linger about my native place, until the reddening winter sun admonished
me that it was time to start on my returning walk. But, when the place
was left behind, and especially when Steerforth and I were happily
seated over our dinner by a blazing fire, it was delicious to think of
having been there. So it was, though in a softened degree, when I
went to my neat room at night; and, turning over the leaves of the
crocodile-book (which was always there, upon a little table), remembered
with a grateful heart how blest I was in having such a friend as
Steerforth, such a friend as Peggotty, and such a substitute for what I
had lost as my excellent and generous aunt.

MY nearest way to Yarmouth, in coming back from these long walks, was by
a ferry. It landed me on the flat between the town and the sea, which I
could make straight across, and so save myself a considerable circuit by
the high road. Mr. Peggotty's house being on that waste-place, and not
a hundred yards out of my track, I always looked in as I went by.
Steerforth was pretty sure to be there expecting me, and we went on
together through the frosty air and gathering fog towards the twinkling
lights of the town.

One dark evening, when I was later than usual--for I had, that day, been
making my parting visit to Blunderstone, as we were now about to return
home--I found him alone in Mr. Peggotty's house, sitting thoughtfully
before the fire. He was so intent upon his own reflections that he was
quite unconscious of my approach. This, indeed, he might easily have
been if he had been less absorbed, for footsteps fell noiselessly on the
sandy ground outside; but even my entrance failed to rouse him. I was
standing close to him, looking at him; and still, with a heavy brow, he
was lost in his meditations.

He gave such a start when I put my hand upon his shoulder, that he made
me start too.

'You come upon me,' he said, almost angrily, 'like a reproachful ghost! '

'I was obliged to announce myself, somehow,' I replied. 'Have I called
you down from the stars? '

'No,' he answered. 'No. '

'Up from anywhere, then? ' said I, taking my seat near him.

'I was looking at the pictures in the fire,' he returned.

'But you are spoiling them for me,' said I, as he stirred it quickly
with a piece of burning wood, striking out of it a train of red-hot
sparks that went careering up the little chimney, and roaring out into
the air.

'You would not have seen them,' he returned. 'I detest this mongrel
time, neither day nor night. How late you are! Where have you been? '

'I have been taking leave of my usual walk,' said I.

'And I have been sitting here,' said Steerforth, glancing round the
room, 'thinking that all the people we found so glad on the night of
our coming down, might--to judge from the present wasted air of the
place--be dispersed, or dead, or come to I don't know what harm. David,
I wish to God I had had a judicious father these last twenty years! '

'My dear Steerforth, what is the matter? '

'I wish with all my soul I had been better guided! ' he exclaimed. 'I
wish with all my soul I could guide myself better! '

There was a passionate dejection in his manner that quite amazed me. He
was more unlike himself than I could have supposed possible.

'It would be better to be this poor Peggotty, or his lout of a nephew,'
he said, getting up and leaning moodily against the chimney-piece, with
his face towards the fire, 'than to be myself, twenty times richer and
twenty times wiser, and be the torment to myself that I have been, in
this Devil's bark of a boat, within the last half-hour! '

I was so confounded by the alteration in him, that at first I could only
observe him in silence, as he stood leaning his head upon his hand, and
looking gloomily down at the fire. At length I begged him, with all
the earnestness I felt, to tell me what had occurred to cross him so
unusually, and to let me sympathize with him, if I could not hope to
advise him. Before I had well concluded, he began to laugh--fretfully at
first, but soon with returning gaiety.

'Tut, it's nothing, Daisy! nothing! ' he replied. 'I told you at the
inn in London, I am heavy company for myself, sometimes. I have been a
nightmare to myself, just now--must have had one, I think. At odd dull
times, nursery tales come up into the memory, unrecognized for what
they are. I believe I have been confounding myself with the bad boy who
"didn't care", and became food for lions--a grander kind of going to
the dogs, I suppose. What old women call the horrors, have been creeping
over me from head to foot. I have been afraid of myself. '

'You are afraid of nothing else, I think,' said I.

'Perhaps not, and yet may have enough to be afraid of too,' he answered.
'Well! So it goes by! I am not about to be hipped again, David; but I
tell you, my good fellow, once more, that it would have been well for me
(and for more than me) if I had had a steadfast and judicious father! '

His face was always full of expression, but I never saw it express such
a dark kind of earnestness as when he said these words, with his glance
bent on the fire.

'So much for that! ' he said, making as if he tossed something light
into the air, with his hand. "'Why, being gone, I am a man again," like
Macbeth. And now for dinner! If I have not (Macbeth-like) broken up the
feast with most admired disorder, Daisy. '

'But where are they all, I wonder! ' said I.

'God knows,' said Steerforth. 'After strolling to the ferry looking
for you, I strolled in here and found the place deserted. That set me
thinking, and you found me thinking. '

The advent of Mrs. Gummidge with a basket, explained how the house had
happened to be empty. She had hurried out to buy something that was
needed, against Mr. Peggotty's return with the tide; and had left the
door open in the meanwhile, lest Ham and little Em'ly, with whom it was
an early night, should come home while she was gone. Steerforth, after
very much improving Mrs. Gummidge's spirits by a cheerful salutation and
a jocose embrace, took my arm, and hurried me away.

He had improved his own spirits, no less than Mrs. Gummidge's, for
they were again at their usual flow, and he was full of vivacious
conversation as we went along.

'And so,' he said, gaily, 'we abandon this buccaneer life tomorrow, do
we? '

'So we agreed,' I returned. 'And our places by the coach are taken, you
know. '

'Ay! there's no help for it, I suppose,' said Steerforth. 'I have
almost forgotten that there is anything to do in the world but to go out
tossing on the sea here. I wish there was not. '

'As long as the novelty should last,' said I, laughing.

'Like enough,' he returned; 'though there's a sarcastic meaning in that
observation for an amiable piece of innocence like my young friend.
Well! I dare say I am a capricious fellow, David.
I know I am; but
while the iron is hot, I can strike it vigorously too. I could pass
a reasonably good examination already, as a pilot in these waters, I
think. '

'Mr. Peggotty says you are a wonder,' I returned.

'A nautical phenomenon, eh? ' laughed Steerforth.

'Indeed he does, and you know how truly; I know how ardent you are
in any pursuit you follow, and how easily you can master it. And that
amazes me most in you, Steerforth--that you should be contented with
such fitful uses of your powers. '

'Contented? ' he answered, merrily. 'I am never contented, except with
your freshness, my gentle Daisy. As to fitfulness, I have never learnt
the art of binding myself to any of the wheels on which the Ixions of
these days are turning round and round. I missed it somehow in a bad
apprenticeship, and now don't care about it. ---You know I have bought a
boat down here? '

'What an extraordinary fellow you are, Steerforth! ' I exclaimed,
stopping--for this was the first I had heard of it. 'When you may never
care to come near the place again! '

'I don't know that,' he returned. 'I have taken a fancy to the place. At
all events,' walking me briskly on, 'I have bought a boat that was for
sale--a clipper, Mr. Peggotty says; and so she is--and Mr. Peggotty will
be master of her in my absence. '

'Now I understand you, Steerforth! ' said I, exultingly. 'You pretend
to have bought it for yourself, but you have really done so to confer
a benefit on him. I might have known as much at first, knowing you.
My dear kind Steerforth, how can I tell you what I think of your
generosity? '

'Tush! ' he answered, turning red. 'The less said, the better. '

'Didn't I know? ' cried I, 'didn't I say that there was not a joy, or
sorrow, or any emotion of such honest hearts that was indifferent to
you? '

'Aye, aye,' he answered, 'you told me all that. There let it rest. We
have said enough! '

Afraid of offending him by pursuing the subject when he made so light
of it, I only pursued it in my thoughts as we went on at even a quicker
pace than before.

'She must be newly rigged,' said Steerforth, 'and I shall leave Littimer
behind to see it done, that I may know she is quite complete. Did I tell
you Littimer had come down? '

'No. '

'Oh yes! came down this morning, with a letter from my mother. '

As our looks met, I observed that he was pale even to his lips, though
he looked very steadily at me. I feared that some difference between him
and his mother might have led to his being in the frame of mind in which
I had found him at the solitary fireside. I hinted so.

'Oh no! ' he said, shaking his head, and giving a slight laugh. 'Nothing
of the sort! Yes. He is come down, that man of mine. '

'The same as ever? ' said I.

'The same as ever,' said Steerforth. 'Distant and quiet as the North
Pole. He shall see to the boat being fresh named. She's the "Stormy
Petrel" now. What does Mr. Peggotty care for Stormy Petrels! I'll have
her christened again. '

'By what name? ' I asked.

'The "Little Em'ly". '

As he had continued to look steadily at me, I took it as a reminder that
he objected to being extolled for his consideration. I could not help
showing in my face how much it pleased me, but I said little, and he
resumed his usual smile, and seemed relieved.

'But see here,' he said, looking before us, 'where the original little
Em'ly comes! And that fellow with her, eh? Upon my soul, he's a true
knight. He never leaves her! '

Ham was a boat-builder in these days, having improved a natural
ingenuity in that handicraft, until he had become a skilled workman. He
was in his working-dress, and looked rugged enough, but manly withal,
and a very fit protector for the blooming little creature at his
side. Indeed, there was a frankness in his face, an honesty, and an
undisguised show of his pride in her, and his love for her, which were,
to me, the best of good looks. I thought, as they came towards us, that
they were well matched even in that particular.

She withdrew her hand timidly from his arm as we stopped to speak to
them, and blushed as she gave it to Steerforth and to me. When they
passed on, after we had exchanged a few words, she did not like to
replace that hand, but, still appearing timid and constrained, walked
by herself. I thought all this very pretty and engaging, and Steerforth
seemed to think so too, as we looked after them fading away in the light
of a young moon.

Suddenly there passed us--evidently following them--a young woman whose
approach we had not observed, but whose face I saw as she went by, and
thought I had a faint remembrance of. She was lightly dressed; looked
bold, and haggard, and flaunting, and poor; but seemed, for the time, to
have given all that to the wind which was blowing, and to have nothing
in her mind but going after them. As the dark distant level, absorbing
their figures into itself, left but itself visible between us and the
sea and clouds, her figure disappeared in like manner, still no nearer
to them than before.

'That is a black shadow to be following the girl,' said Steerforth,
standing still; 'what does it mean? '

He spoke in a low voice that sounded almost strange to Me.

'She must have it in her mind to beg of them, I think,' said I.

'A beggar would be no novelty,' said Steerforth; 'but it is a strange
thing that the beggar should take that shape tonight. '

'Why? ' I asked.

'For no better reason, truly, than because I was thinking,' he said,
after a pause, 'of something like it, when it came by. Where the Devil
did it come from, I wonder! '

'From the shadow of this wall, I think,' said I, as we emerged upon a
road on which a wall abutted.

'It's gone! ' he returned, looking over his shoulder. 'And all ill go
with it. Now for our dinner! '

But he looked again over his shoulder towards the sea-line glimmering
afar off, and yet again. And he wondered about it, in some broken
expressions, several times, in the short remainder of our walk; and only
seemed to forget it when the light of fire and candle shone upon us,
seated warm and merry, at table.

Littimer was there, and had his usual effect upon me. When I said to
him that I hoped Mrs. Steerforth and Miss Dartle were well, he answered
respectfully (and of course respectably), that they were tolerably well,
he thanked me, and had sent their compliments. This was all, and yet he
seemed to me to say as plainly as a man could say: 'You are very young,
sir; you are exceedingly young. '

We had almost finished dinner, when taking a step or two towards the
table, from the corner where he kept watch upon us, or rather upon me,
as I felt, he said to his master:

'I beg your pardon, sir. Miss Mowcher is down here. '

'Who? ' cried Steerforth, much astonished.

'Miss Mowcher, sir. '

'Why, what on earth does she do here? ' said Steerforth.

'It appears to be her native part of the country, sir. She informs me
that she makes one of her professional visits here, every year, sir.
I met her in the street this afternoon, and she wished to know if she
might have the honour of waiting on you after dinner, sir. '

'Do you know the Giantess in question, Daisy? ' inquired Steerforth.

I was obliged to confess--I felt ashamed, even of being at this
disadvantage before Littimer--that Miss Mowcher and I were wholly
unacquainted.

'Then you shall know her,' said Steerforth, 'for she is one of the seven
wonders of the world. When Miss Mowcher comes, show her in. '

I felt some curiosity and excitement about this lady, especially as
Steerforth burst into a fit of laughing when I referred to her, and
positively refused to answer any question of which I made her the
subject. I remained, therefore, in a state of considerable expectation
until the cloth had been removed some half an hour, and we were sitting
over our decanter of wine before the fire, when the door opened, and
Littimer, with his habitual serenity quite undisturbed, announced:

'Miss Mowcher! '

I looked at the doorway and saw nothing. I was still looking at
the doorway, thinking that Miss Mowcher was a long while making her
appearance, when, to my infinite astonishment, there came waddling round
a sofa which stood between me and it, a pursy dwarf, of about forty
or forty-five, with a very large head and face, a pair of roguish grey
eyes, and such extremely little arms, that, to enable herself to lay a
finger archly against her snub nose, as she ogled Steerforth, she was
obliged to meet the finger half-way, and lay her nose against it.
Her chin, which was what is called a double chin, was so fat that it
entirely swallowed up the strings of her bonnet, bow and all. Throat she
had none; waist she had none; legs she had none, worth mentioning; for
though she was more than full-sized down to where her waist would have
been, if she had had any, and though she terminated, as human beings
generally do, in a pair of feet, she was so short that she stood at a
common-sized chair as at a table, resting a bag she carried on the seat.
This lady--dressed in an off-hand, easy style; bringing her nose and her
forefinger together, with the difficulty I have described; standing with
her head necessarily on one side, and, with one of her sharp eyes shut
up, making an uncommonly knowing face--after ogling Steerforth for a few
moments, broke into a torrent of words.

'What! My flower! ' she pleasantly began, shaking her large head at him.
'You're there, are you! Oh, you naughty boy, fie for shame, what do you
do so far away from home? Up to mischief, I'll be bound. Oh, you're a
downy fellow, Steerforth, so you are, and I'm another, ain't I? Ha, ha,
ha! You'd have betted a hundred pound to five, now, that you wouldn't
have seen me here, wouldn't you? Bless you, man alive, I'm everywhere.
I'm here and there, and where not, like the conjurer's half-crown in the
lady's handkercher. Talking of handkerchers--and talking of ladies--what
a comfort you are to your blessed mother, ain't you, my dear boy, over
one of my shoulders, and I don't say which! '

Miss Mowcher untied her bonnet, at this passage of her discourse, threw
back the strings, and sat down, panting, on a footstool in front of
the fire--making a kind of arbour of the dining table, which spread its
mahogany shelter above her head.

'Oh my stars and what's-their-names! ' she went on, clapping a hand on
each of her little knees, and glancing shrewdly at me, 'I'm of too full
a habit, that's the fact, Steerforth. After a flight of stairs, it gives
me as much trouble to draw every breath I want, as if it was a bucket of
water. If you saw me looking out of an upper window, you'd think I was a
fine woman, wouldn't you? '

'I should think that, wherever I saw you,' replied Steerforth.

'Go along, you dog, do! ' cried the little creature, making a whisk at
him with the handkerchief with which she was wiping her face, 'and don't
be impudent! But I give you my word and honour I was at Lady Mithers's
last week--THERE'S a woman! How SHE wears! --and Mithers himself came
into the room where I was waiting for her--THERE'S a man! How HE wears!
and his wig too, for he's had it these ten years--and he went on at
that rate in the complimentary line, that I began to think I should be
obliged to ring the bell. Ha! ha! ha! He's a pleasant wretch, but he
wants principle. '

'What were you doing for Lady Mithers? ' asked Steerforth.

'That's tellings, my blessed infant,' she retorted, tapping her nose
again, screwing up her face, and twinkling her eyes like an imp of
supernatural intelligence. 'Never YOU mind! You'd like to know whether
I stop her hair from falling off, or dye it, or touch up her
complexion, or improve her eyebrows, wouldn't you? And so you shall, my
darling--when I tell you! Do you know what my great grandfather's name
was? '

'No,' said Steerforth.

'It was Walker, my sweet pet,' replied Miss Mowcher, 'and he came of a
long line of Walkers, that I inherit all the Hookey estates from. '

I never beheld anything approaching to Miss Mowcher's wink except Miss
Mowcher's self-possession. She had a wonderful way too, when listening
to what was said to her, or when waiting for an answer to what she had
said herself, of pausing with her head cunningly on one side, and one
eye turned up like a magpie's. Altogether I was lost in amazement,
and sat staring at her, quite oblivious, I am afraid, of the laws of
politeness.

She had by this time drawn the chair to her side, and was busily engaged
in producing from the bag (plunging in her short arm to the shoulder, at
every dive) a number of small bottles, sponges, combs, brushes, bits of
flannel, little pairs of curling-irons, and other instruments, which
she tumbled in a heap upon the chair. From this employment she suddenly
desisted, and said to Steerforth, much to my confusion:

'Who's your friend? '

'Mr. Copperfield,' said Steerforth; 'he wants to know you. '

'Well, then, he shall! I thought he looked as if he did! ' returned Miss
Mowcher, waddling up to me, bag in hand, and laughing on me as she came.
'Face like a peach! ' standing on tiptoe to pinch my cheek as I
sat. 'Quite tempting! I'm very fond of peaches. Happy to make your
acquaintance, Mr. Copperfield, I'm sure. '

I said that I congratulated myself on having the honour to make hers,
and that the happiness was mutual.

'Oh, my goodness, how polite we are! ' exclaimed Miss Mowcher, making a
preposterous attempt to cover her large face with her morsel of a hand.
'What a world of gammon and spinnage it is, though, ain't it! '

This was addressed confidentially to both of us, as the morsel of a
hand came away from the face, and buried itself, arm and all, in the bag
again.

'What do you mean, Miss Mowcher? ' said Steerforth.

'Ha! ha! ha! What a refreshing set of humbugs we are, to be sure, ain't
we, my sweet child? ' replied that morsel of a woman, feeling in the bag
with her head on one side and her eye in the air. 'Look here! ' taking
something out. 'Scraps of the Russian Prince's nails. Prince Alphabet
turned topsy-turvy, I call him, for his name's got all the letters in
it, higgledy-piggledy. '

'The Russian Prince is a client of yours, is he? ' said Steerforth.

'I believe you, my pet,' replied Miss Mowcher. 'I keep his nails in
order for him. Twice a week! Fingers and toes. '

'He pays well, I hope? ' said Steerforth.

'Pays, as he speaks, my dear child--through the nose,' replied Miss
Mowcher. 'None of your close shavers the Prince ain't. You'd say so, if
you saw his moustachios. Red by nature, black by art. '

'By your art, of course,' said Steerforth.