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apprehension, on the part of my family, that Mr. Micawber would require

pecuniary accommodation. I cannot help thinking,’ said Mrs. Micawber,

with an air of deep sagacity, ‘that there are members of my family who

have been apprehensive that Mr. Micawber would solicit them for their

names.---I do not mean to be conferred in Baptism upon our children,

but to be inscribed on Bills of Exchange, and negotiated in the Money

Market.’

The look of penetration with which Mrs. Micawber announced this

discovery, as if no one had ever thought of it before, seemed rather to

astonish my aunt; who abruptly replied, ‘Well, ma’am, upon the whole, I

shouldn’t wonder if you were right!’

‘Mr. Micawber being now on the eve of casting off the pecuniary

shackles that have so long enthralled him,’ said Mrs. Micawber, ‘and of

commencing a new career in a country where there is sufficient range

for his abilities,--which, in my opinion, is exceedingly important; Mr.

Micawber’s abilities peculiarly requiring space,--it seems to me that

my family should signalize the occasion by coming forward. What I could

wish to see, would be a meeting between Mr. Micawber and my family at

a festive entertainment, to be given at my family’s expense; where Mr.

Micawber’s health and prosperity being proposed, by some leading member

of my family, Mr. Micawber might have an opportunity of developing his

views.’

‘My dear,’ said Mr. Micawber, with some heat, ‘it may be better for me

to state distinctly, at once, that if I were to develop my views to that

assembled group, they would possibly be found of an offensive nature:

my impression being that your family are, in the aggregate, impertinent

Snobs; and, in detail, unmitigated Ruffians.’

‘Micawber,’ said Mrs. Micawber, shaking her head, ‘no! You have never

understood them, and they have never understood you.’

Mr. Micawber coughed.

‘They have never understood you, Micawber,’ said his wife. ‘They may

be incapable of it. If so, that is their misfortune. I can pity their

misfortune.’

‘I am extremely sorry, my dear Emma,’ said Mr. Micawber, relenting, ‘to

have been betrayed into any expressions that might, even remotely, have

the appearance of being strong expressions. All I would say is, that

I can go abroad without your family coming forward to favour me,--in

short, with a parting Shove of their cold shoulders; and that, upon the

whole, I would rather leave England with such impetus as I possess, than

derive any acceleration of it from that quarter. At the same time, my

dear, if they should condescend to reply to your communications--which

our joint experience renders most improbable--far be it from me to be a

barrier to your wishes.’

The matter being thus amicably settled, Mr. Micawber gave Mrs. Micawber

his arm, and glancing at the heap of books and papers lying before

Traddles on the table, said they would leave us to ourselves; which they

ceremoniously did.

‘My dear Copperfield,’ said Traddles, leaning back in his chair when

they were gone, and looking at me with an affection that made his eyes

red, and his hair all kinds of shapes, ‘I don’t make any excuse for

troubling you with business, because I know you are deeply interested

in it, and it may divert your thoughts. My dear boy, I hope you are not

worn out?’

‘I am quite myself,’ said I, after a pause. ‘We have more cause to think

of my aunt than of anyone. You know how much she has done.’

‘Surely, surely,’ answered Traddles. ‘Who can forget it!’

‘But even that is not all,’ said I. ‘During the last fortnight, some new

trouble has vexed her; and she has been in and out of London every day.

Several times she has gone out early, and been absent until evening.

Last night, Traddles, with this journey before her, it was almost

midnight before she came home. You know what her consideration for

others is. She will not tell me what has happened to distress her.’

My aunt, very pale, and with deep lines in her face, sat immovable until

I had finished; when some stray tears found their way to her cheeks, and

she put her hand on mine.

‘It’s nothing, Trot; it’s nothing. There will be no more of it. You

shall know by and by. Now Agnes, my dear, let us attend to these

affairs.’

‘I must do Mr. Micawber the justice to say,’ Traddles began, ‘that

although he would appear not to have worked to any good account for

himself, he is a most untiring man when he works for other people. I

never saw such a fellow. If he always goes on in the same way, he must

be, virtually, about two hundred years old, at present. The heat into

which he has been continually putting himself; and the distracted and

impetuous manner in which he has been diving, day and night, among

papers and books; to say nothing of the immense number of letters he has

written me between this house and Mr. Wickfield’s, and often across the

table when he has been sitting opposite, and might much more easily have

spoken; is quite extraordinary.’

‘Letters!’ cried my aunt. ‘I believe he dreams in letters!’

‘There’s Mr. Dick, too,’ said Traddles, ‘has been doing wonders! As soon

as he was released from overlooking Uriah Heep, whom he kept in such

charge as I never saw exceeded, he began to devote himself to Mr.

Wickfield. And really his anxiety to be of use in the investigations we

have been making, and his real usefulness in extracting, and copying,

and fetching, and carrying, have been quite stimulating to us.’

‘Dick is a very remarkable man,’ exclaimed my aunt; ‘and I always said

he was. Trot, you know it.’

‘I am happy to say, Miss Wickfield,’ pursued Traddles, at once with

great delicacy and with great earnestness, ‘that in your absence Mr.

Wickfield has considerably improved. Relieved of the incubus that had

fastened upon him for so long a time, and of the dreadful apprehensions

under which he had lived, he is hardly the same person. At times,

even his impaired power of concentrating his memory and attention on

particular points of business, has recovered itself very much; and he

has been able to assist us in making some things clear, that we should

have found very difficult indeed, if not hopeless, without him. But

what I have to do is to come to results; which are short enough; not

to gossip on all the hopeful circumstances I have observed, or I shall

never have done.’ His natural manner and agreeable simplicity made it

transparent that he said this to put us in good heart, and to enable

Agnes to hear her father mentioned with greater confidence; but it was

not the less pleasant for that.

‘Now, let me see,’ said Traddles, looking among the papers on the

table. ‘Having counted our funds, and reduced to order a great mass of

unintentional confusion in the first place, and of wilful confusion and

falsification in the second, we take it to be clear that Mr. Wickfield

might now wind up his business, and his agency-trust, and exhibit no

deficiency or defalcation whatever.’

‘Oh, thank Heaven!’ cried Agnes, fervently.

‘But,’ said Traddles, ‘the surplus that would be left as his means of

support--and I suppose the house to be sold, even in saying this--would

be so small, not exceeding in all probability some hundreds of pounds,

that perhaps, Miss Wickfield, it would be best to consider whether he

might not retain his agency of the estate to which he has so long been

receiver. His friends might advise him, you know; now he is free. You

yourself, Miss Wickfield--Copperfield--I--’

‘I have considered it, Trotwood,’ said Agnes, looking to me, ‘and I feel

that it ought not to be, and must not be; even on the recommendation of

a friend to whom I am so grateful, and owe so much.’

‘I will not say that I recommend it,’ observed Traddles. ‘I think it

right to suggest it. No more.’

‘I am happy to hear you say so,’ answered Agnes, steadily, ‘for it gives

me hope, almost assurance, that we think alike. Dear Mr. Traddles and

dear Trotwood, papa once free with honour, what could I wish for! I have

always aspired, if I could have released him from the toils in which he

was held, to render back some little portion of the love and care I owe

him, and to devote my life to him. It has been, for years, the utmost

height of my hopes. To take our future on myself, will be the next

great happiness--the next to his release from all trust and

responsibility--that I can know.’

‘Have you thought how, Agnes?’

‘Often! I am not afraid, dear Trotwood. I am certain of success. So many

people know me here, and think kindly of me, that I am certain. Don’t

mistrust me. Our wants are not many. If I rent the dear old house, and

keep a school, I shall be useful and happy.’

The calm fervour of her cheerful voice brought back so vividly, first

the dear old house itself, and then my solitary home, that my heart was

too full for speech. Traddles pretended for a little while to be busily

looking among the papers.

‘Next, Miss Trotwood,’ said Traddles, ‘that property of yours.’

‘Well, sir,’ sighed my aunt. ‘All I have got to say about it is, that if

it’s gone, I can bear it; and if it’s not gone, I shall be glad to get

it back.’

‘It was originally, I think, eight thousand pounds, Consols?’ said

Traddles.

‘Right!’ replied my aunt.

‘I can’t account for more than five,’ said Traddles, with an air of

perplexity.

‘--thousand, do you mean?’ inquired my aunt, with uncommon composure,

‘or pounds?’

‘Five thousand pounds,’ said Traddles.

‘It was all there was,’ returned my aunt. ‘I sold three, myself. One, I

paid for your articles, Trot, my dear; and the other two I have by me.

When I lost the rest, I thought it wise to say nothing about that sum,

but to keep it secretly for a rainy day. I wanted to see how you would

come out of the trial, Trot; and you came out nobly--persevering,

self-reliant, self-denying! So did Dick. Don’t speak to me, for I find

my nerves a little shaken!’

Nobody would have thought so, to see her sitting upright, with her arms

folded; but she had wonderful self-command.

‘Then I am delighted to say,’ cried Traddles, beaming with joy, ‘that we

have recovered the whole money!’

‘Don’t congratulate me, anybody!’ exclaimed my aunt. ‘How so, sir?’

‘You believed it had been misappropriated by Mr. Wickfield?’ said

Traddles.

‘Of course I did,’ said my aunt, ‘and was therefore easily silenced.

Agnes, not a word!’

‘And indeed,’ said Traddles, ‘it was sold, by virtue of the power of

management he held from you; but I needn’t say by whom sold, or on whose

actual signature. It was afterwards pretended to Mr. Wickfield, by that

rascal,--and proved, too, by figures,--that he had possessed himself of

the money (on general instructions, he said) to keep other deficiencies

and difficulties from the light. Mr. Wickfield, being so weak and

helpless in his hands as to pay you, afterwards, several sums of

interest on a pretended principal which he knew did not exist, made

himself, unhappily, a party to the fraud.’

‘And at last took the blame upon himself,’ added my aunt; ‘and wrote me

a mad letter, charging himself with robbery, and wrong unheard of. Upon

which I paid him a visit early one morning, called for a candle, burnt

the letter, and told him if he ever could right me and himself, to

do it; and if he couldn’t, to keep his own counsel for his daughter’s

sake.---If anybody speaks to me, I’ll leave the house!’

We all remained quiet; Agnes covering her face.

‘Well, my dear friend,’ said my aunt, after a pause, ‘and you have

really extorted the money back from him?’

‘Why, the fact is,’ returned Traddles, ‘Mr. Micawber had so completely

hemmed him in, and was always ready with so many new points if an

old one failed, that he could not escape from us. A most remarkable

circumstance is, that I really don’t think he grasped this sum even so

much for the gratification of his avarice, which was inordinate, as in

the hatred he felt for Copperfield. He said so to me, plainly. He said

he would even have spent as much, to baulk or injure Copperfield.’

‘Ha!’ said my aunt, knitting her brows thoughtfully, and glancing at

Agnes. ‘And what’s become of him?’

‘I don’t know. He left here,’ said Traddles, ‘with his mother, who had

been clamouring, and beseeching, and disclosing, the whole time. They

went away by one of the London night coaches, and I know no more about

him; except that his malevolence to me at parting was audacious. He

seemed to consider himself hardly less indebted to me, than to Mr.

Micawber; which I consider (as I told him) quite a compliment.’

‘Do you suppose he has any money, Traddles?’ I asked.

‘Oh dear, yes, I should think so,’ he replied, shaking his head,

seriously. ‘I should say he must have pocketed a good deal, in one

way or other. But, I think you would find, Copperfield, if you had an

opportunity of observing his course, that money would never keep that

man out of mischief. He is such an incarnate hypocrite, that whatever

object he pursues, he must pursue crookedly. It’s his only compensation

for the outward restraints he puts upon himself. Always creeping along

the ground to some small end or other, he will always magnify every

object in the way; and consequently will hate and suspect everybody that

comes, in the most innocent manner, between him and it. So the crooked

courses will become crookeder, at any moment, for the least reason,

or for none. It’s only necessary to consider his history here,’ said

Traddles, ‘to know that.’

‘He’s a monster of meanness!’ said my aunt.

‘Really I don’t know about that,’ observed Traddles thoughtfully. ‘Many

people can be very mean, when they give their minds to it.’

‘And now, touching Mr. Micawber,’ said my aunt.

‘Well, really,’ said Traddles, cheerfully, ‘I must, once more, give Mr.

Micawber high praise. But for his having been so patient and persevering

for so long a time, we never could have hoped to do anything worth

speaking of. And I think we ought to consider that Mr. Micawber did

right, for right’s sake, when we reflect what terms he might have made

with Uriah Heep himself, for his silence.’

‘I think so too,’ said I.

‘Now, what would you give him?’ inquired my aunt.