with a greater air of gentility than ever.

Mrs. Micawber was

equally elastic. I have known her to be thrown into fainting fits by the king's taxes at three o'clock, and to eat lamb chops breaded and drink warm ale (paid for with two teaspoons that had gone to the pawnbroker's) at four. The Micawbers were my only friends, and they left London for Plymouth. Before leaving Mr. Micawber gave me some parting counsel.

XII

am older than

of some ex

My dear young friend," said Mr. Micawber, "I you; a man of some experience in life, and — and perience, in short, in difficulties, generally speaking. At present, and until something turns up (which I am, I may say, hourly expecting), I have nothing to bestow but advice. Still my advice is so far worth taking, that-in short, that I have never taken it myself, and am the " - here Mr. Micawber, who had been beaming and smiling all over his head and face, up to the present moment, checked himself, and frowned, "the miserable wretch you behold."

"My dear Micawber!" urged his wife.

66

"I say," returned Mr. Micawber, quite forgetting himself, and smiling again, "the miserable wretch you behold. My advice is, never do to-morrow what you can do to-day. Procrastination is the thief of time. Collar him!"

"My poor papa's maxim," Mrs. Micawber observed.

'My dear," said Mr. Micawber, "your papa was very well in his way, and Heaven forbid that I should disparage him! Take him for all in all, we ne'er shall-in short, make the acquaintance, probably, of anybody else possessing, at his time of life, the same legs for gaiters, and able to read the same description of print without spectacles. But he applied that maxim to our marriage, my dear, and that was so far prematurely entered into, in consequence, that I never recovered the expense."

Mr. Micawber looked aside at Mrs. Micawber, and added, "Not that I am sorry for it: quite the contrary, my love." After which he was grave for a minute or so.

"My other piece of advice, Copperfield," said Mr. Micawber, "you know. Annual income twenty pounds; annual expenditure nineteen, nineteen, six — result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds; annual expenditure twenty pounds nought and six, result misery. The blossom is blighted, the leaf is withered, the god of day goes down upon the dreary scene, and—and, in short, you are forever floored. As I am!"

To make his example the more impressive, Mr. Micawber drank a glass of punch with an air of great enjoyment and satisfaction, and whistled the College Hornpipe.

I was so disheartened at parting with the Micawbers that I made a desperate resolve, travelled down to Dover on foot, and XIII presented myself, ragged, dirty, and tired, to my aunt, already mentioned, Miss Betsey Trotwood. Miss Trotwood was a tall, rather hard-featured, but handsome woman. She was of a stern, resolute character, very high-handed and hot-tempered, but kind and generous. There were two other occupants of her house, Janet, a pretty, neat maid-servant, and Mr. Dick, a gray-headed, half-mad gentleman, good-natured and smiling, and perpetually rattling the loose change in the pockets of his trousers. He had been engaged for ten years or more in drawing up a memorial to the Lord Chancellor, relating to Mr. Dick's affairs; but his inability to keep out of it the name of Charles I. had, as yet, prevented its completion. My aunt received me kindly, washed and fed and clothed me; and when, at her request, Mr. Murdstone and XIV his sister called upon her, she routed them most gallantly and effectually, making even Mr. Murdstone wince; and constituted herself and Mr. Dick my guardians. In a short time my XV aunt sent me to Canterbury, where I went to school, but I lived with Mr. Wickfield, a lawyer, and a friend of my aunt's, who had a beautiful daughter, Agnes, of about my own age. Mr. Wickfield's clerk was one Uriah Heep, a pale, bloodless fellow, with no eyebrows or eyelashes to speak of, and cold, clammy hands, which it was very unpleasant to shake. Uriah Heep was, so at least he frequently said, a very "'umble" person; but he had a sly way of peering about, and of turning up in unexpected places at unexpected times, which was not quite pleasant.

XVI

The master of the school was Dr. Strong, an absentminded, learned, and very kindly man, of nearly sixty years of age, with a young and lovely wife. (People wondered, by the way, why the doctor was not jealous of Mr. Jack Maldon, his wife's handsome young cousin, for whom the doctor generously found a remunerative employment.)

XVII

Once I condescended, as Uriah Heep expressed it, to take tea with his mother and himself in their "'umble" abode; and I must confess that they wormed out of me much information about myself, and more especially about Mr. Wickfield, which I never intended to reveal. While I was with Uriah on this occasion, who should meet us but Mr. Micawber, then on a flying visit to Canterbury in an (unsuccessful) search for employment. I was obliged to introduce them to each other.

XVIII

At Canterbury I spent five peaceful, happy years; I rose to the head of the school, thrashed the strongest butcherboy in town, and then, at my dear aunt's suggestion, I started off

first for London, and then to visit Peggotty at Yarmouth. In London I met my old friend and schoolmate, Steerforth, who proposed to accompany me to Yarmouth, but first I stayed with him for a few days at his mother's house in

XIX

XX Highgate. There were two persons there besides Steerforth himself, of whom I shall have something to say later. These were Rosa Dartle, a dark woman of thirty years or thereabout, with great restless black eyes, and a clever way of insinuating things which she wished not to say outright. She was disfigured somewhat by a red scar on her upper lip, the effect, as Steerforth told me, of a wound from a hammer which he had thrown at her in a fit of anger, when he was a boy. The other person was Littimer, Steerforth's valet, an intensely respectable, cat-like sort of man, who always gave me an uncomfortable impression that he considered me extremely young and unsophisticated, as indeed I

was.

XXI

We reached Mr. Peggotty's cottage at an interesting time, just after Little Em'ly had given her word to marry Ham, who had been her faithful suitor for many years. The whole family were in an excited frame of mind, and even Mrs. Gummidge was cheerful for once. Steerforth took his place in the family circle so easily and naturally, and with so much tact, that he charmed them all. As we were going home, I said to him, “I never saw people so happy. How delightful to have shared in their honest joy, as we have done!" "That's rather a chuckle-headed fellow for the girl, is n't he?" said Steerforth.

We stayed, there for two weeks, Steerforth mingling with XXII the sailors and going off on fishing trips with them, and becoming intimate with the Peggottys, while I visited my old home near by, and spent many hours with Mrs. Barkis and her husband, the latter being now incapacitated by rheumatism, and keeping his

money in a chest under his bed, which he pretended, even XXIII to his wife, contained nothing but old clothes. Just as we were going away, Steerforth informed me that he had bought a lugger, had christened it the "Little Em'ly," placed it under the command of Mr. Peggotty, and that Littimer was to oversee the repairing and outfitting of it. And Mr. Littimer, as respectable and self-contained as ever, arrived just before our departure.

Going up to London, I met my aunt there, and became an arXXIV ticled clerk to Messrs. Spenlow and Jorkins, Proctors, my aunt generously agreeing to pay the one thousand pounds premium which was required, in order that I might eventually become a proctor myself. I was installed in very comfortable little chambers in the Adelphi, and there, soon afterward, I entertained Steerforth and two of

XXVI

his friends at dinner, and I blush to write it even now for the first and last time in my life I got drunk. After dinner it was proposed that we should go to the theatre; and there, as fate would have it, I met the woman whom of all women, I liked and reXXV spected most, Agnes Wickfield. The next day, having had a note from her telling me where she was, I called upon her, and explained, and was forgiven for, my beastly conduct of the previous day. She warned me, very unjustly as I thought, against Steerforth and his influence over me; and she told me certain bad news, namely, that Uriah Heep had wormed himself into her father's confidence, was about to become his partner, and had established some mysterious power over him. Soon afterward both Agnes and Uriah returned to Canterbury, and I was invited by Mr. Spenlow to spend a Sunday at his country-place, his only daughter, Dora, having lately returned from Paris, where she had been at school. Dora Spenlow was a slight, blonde girl, with the most delightful little voice, the gayest little laugh, the pleasantest and most fascinating little ways, that ever led a lost youth into hopeless slavery. I fell madly in love with her at first sight. XXVII Having at this time a vague craving for sympathy, I sought out my school friend, Traddles, who lived at Camden town in the upper story of a house which wore an aspect of faded gentility. The house reminded me of my old friends, the Micawbers, and I can hardly say that I was surprised to find that they were actually living there, Traddles being a sub-tenant of Mr. Micawber's. My old school friend gave me an account of his prospects.

“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 did n't answer very well; and then I began to state cases for them, and make abstracts, and do that sort of work; for I am a plodding kind of fellow, Copperfield, and had learned the way of doing such things pithily. Well. That put it into 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 encyclopædia, 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! O Dora!

66

"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. . . . She is such a dear girl! . . . 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 have n'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 parlor 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