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by the registrars for their Own private emolument, unsafe, not even

ascertained to be fire-proof, choked with the important documents

it held, and positively, from the roof to the basement, a mercenary

speculation of the registrars, who took great fees from the public, and

crammed the public’s wills away anyhow and anywhere, having no other

object than to get rid of them cheaply. That, perhaps, it was a little

unreasonable that these registrars in the receipt of profits amounting

to eight or nine thousand pounds a year (to say nothing of the profits

of the deputy registrars, and clerks of seats), should not be obliged to

spend a little of that money, in finding a reasonably safe place for the

important documents which all classes of people were compelled to hand

over to them, whether they would or no. That, perhaps, it was a little

unjust, that all the great offices in this great office should be

magnificent sinecures, while the unfortunate working-clerks in the cold

dark room upstairs were the worst rewarded, and the least considered

men, doing important services, in London. That perhaps it was a little

indecent that the principal registrar of all, whose duty it was to

find the public, constantly resorting to this place, all needful

accommodation, should be an enormous sinecurist in virtue of that post

(and might be, besides, a clergyman, a pluralist, the holder of a

staff in a cathedral, and what not),--while the public was put to the

inconvenience of which we had a specimen every afternoon when the office

was busy, and which we knew to be quite monstrous. That, perhaps,

in short, this Prerogative Office of the diocese of Canterbury was

altogether such a pestilent job, and such a pernicious absurdity, that

but for its being squeezed away in a corner of St. Paul’s Churchyard,

which few people knew, it must have been turned completely inside out,

and upside down, long ago.

Mr. Spenlow smiled as I became modestly warm on the subject, and then

argued this question with me as he had argued the other. He said, what

was it after all? It was a question of feeling. If the public felt

that their wills were in safe keeping, and took it for granted that the

office was not to be made better, who was the worse for it? Nobody. Who

was the better for it? All the Sinecurists. Very well. Then the good

predominated. It might not be a perfect system; nothing was perfect;

but what he objected to, was, the insertion of the wedge. Under the

Prerogative Office, the country had been glorious. Insert the wedge into

the Prerogative Office, and the country would cease to be glorious. He

considered it the principle of a gentleman to take things as he found

them; and he had no doubt the Prerogative Office would last our time. I

deferred to his opinion, though I had great doubts of it myself. I find

he was right, however; for it has not only lasted to the present moment,

but has done so in the teeth of a great parliamentary report made (not

too willingly) eighteen years ago, when all these objections of mine

were set forth in detail, and when the existing stowage for wills was

described as equal to the accumulation of only two years and a half

more. What they have done with them since; whether they have lost many,

or whether they sell any, now and then, to the butter shops; I don’t

know. I am glad mine is not there, and I hope it may not go there, yet

awhile.

I have set all this down, in my present blissful chapter, because here

it comes into its natural place. Mr. Spenlow and I falling into this

conversation, prolonged it and our saunter to and fro, until we diverged

into general topics. And so it came about, in the end, that Mr. Spenlow

told me this day week was Dora’s birthday, and he would be glad if I

would come down and join a little picnic on the occasion. I went out of

my senses immediately; became a mere driveller next day, on receipt of

a little lace-edged sheet of note-paper, ‘Favoured by papa. To remind’;

and passed the intervening period in a state of dotage.

I think I committed every possible absurdity in the way of preparation

for this blessed event. I turn hot when I remember the cravat I bought.

My boots might be placed in any collection of instruments of torture.

I provided, and sent down by the Norwood coach the night before, a

delicate little hamper, amounting in itself, I thought, almost to a

declaration. There were crackers in it with the tenderest mottoes that

could be got for money. At six in the morning, I was in Covent Garden

Market, buying a bouquet for Dora. At ten I was on horseback (I hired a

gallant grey, for the occasion), with the bouquet in my hat, to keep it

fresh, trotting down to Norwood.

I suppose that when I saw Dora in the garden and pretended not to see

her, and rode past the house pretending to be anxiously looking for

it, I committed two small fooleries which other young gentlemen in my

circumstances might have committed--because they came so very natural

to me. But oh! when I DID find the house, and DID dismount at the

garden-gate, and drag those stony-hearted boots across the lawn to Dora

sitting on a garden-seat under a lilac tree, what a spectacle she was,

upon that beautiful morning, among the butterflies, in a white chip

bonnet and a dress of celestial blue! There was a young lady with

her--comparatively stricken in years--almost twenty, I should say. Her

name was Miss Mills. And Dora called her Julia. She was the bosom friend

of Dora. Happy Miss Mills!

Jip was there, and Jip WOULD bark at me again. When I presented my

bouquet, he gnashed his teeth with jealousy. Well he might. If he had

the least idea how I adored his mistress, well he might!

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

I had had an intention of saying (and had been studying the best form of

words for three miles) that I thought them beautiful before I saw them

so near HER. But I couldn’t manage it. She was too bewildering. To see

her lay the flowers against her little dimpled chin, was to lose all

presence of mind and power of language in a feeble ecstasy. I wonder I

didn’t say, ‘Kill me, if you have a heart, Miss Mills. Let me die here!’

Then Dora held my flowers to Jip to smell. Then Jip growled, and

wouldn’t smell them. Then Dora laughed, and held them a little closer

to Jip, to make him. Then Jip laid hold of a bit of geranium with his

teeth, and worried imaginary cats in it. Then Dora beat him, and pouted,

and said, ‘My poor beautiful flowers!’ as compassionately, I thought, as

if Jip had laid hold of me. I wished he had!

‘You’ll be so glad to hear, Mr. Copperfield,’ said Dora, ‘that that

cross Miss Murdstone is not here. She has gone to her brother’s

marriage, and will be away at least three weeks. Isn’t that delightful?’

I said I was sure it must be delightful to her, and all that was

delightful to her was delightful to me. Miss Mills, with an air of

superior wisdom and benevolence, smiled upon us.

‘She is the most disagreeable thing I ever saw,’ said Dora. ‘You can’t

believe how ill-tempered and shocking she is, Julia.’

‘Yes, I can, my dear!’ said Julia.

‘YOU can, perhaps, love,’ returned Dora, with her hand on Julia’s.

‘Forgive my not excepting you, my dear, at first.’

I learnt, from this, that Miss Mills had had her trials in the course

of a chequered existence; and that to these, perhaps, I might refer that

wise benignity of manner which I had already noticed. I found, in

the course of the day, that this was the case: Miss Mills having been

unhappy in a misplaced affection, and being understood to have retired

from the world on her awful stock of experience, but still to take a

calm interest in the unblighted hopes and loves of youth.

But now Mr. Spenlow came out of the house, and Dora went to him,

saying, ‘Look, papa, what beautiful flowers!’ And Miss Mills smiled

thoughtfully, as who should say, ‘Ye Mayflies, enjoy your brief

existence in the bright morning of life!’ And we all walked from the

lawn towards the carriage, which was getting ready.

I shall never have such a ride again. I have never had such another.

There were only those three, their hamper, my hamper, and the

guitar-case, in the phaeton; and, of course, the phaeton was open; and

I rode behind it, and Dora sat with her back to the horses, looking

towards me. She kept the bouquet close to her on the cushion, and

wouldn’t allow Jip to sit on that side of her at all, for fear he should

crush it. She often carried it in her hand, often refreshed herself

with its fragrance. Our eyes at those times often met; and my great

astonishment is that I didn’t go over the head of my gallant grey into

the carriage.

There was dust, I believe. There was a good deal of dust, I believe. I

have a faint impression that Mr. Spenlow remonstrated with me for riding

in it; but I knew of none. I was sensible of a mist of love and beauty

about Dora, but of nothing else. He stood up sometimes, and asked me

what I thought of the prospect. I said it was delightful, and I dare

say it was; but it was all Dora to me. The sun shone Dora, and the birds

sang Dora. The south wind blew Dora, and the wild flowers in the hedges

were all Doras, to a bud. My comfort is, Miss Mills understood me. Miss

Mills alone could enter into my feelings thoroughly.

I don’t know how long we were going, and to this hour I know as little

where we went. Perhaps it was near Guildford. Perhaps some Arabian-night

magician, opened up the place for the day, and shut it up for ever when

we came away. It was a green spot, on a hill, carpeted with soft turf.

There were shady trees, and heather, and, as far as the eye could see, a

rich landscape.

It was a trying thing to find people here, waiting for us; and my

jealousy, even of the ladies, knew no bounds. But all of my own

sex--especially one impostor, three or four years my elder, with a red

whisker, on which he established an amount of presumption not to be

endured--were my mortal foes.

We all unpacked our baskets, and employed ourselves in getting dinner

ready. Red Whisker pretended he could make a salad (which I don’t

believe), and obtruded himself on public notice. Some of the young

ladies washed the lettuces for him, and sliced them under his

directions. Dora was among these. I felt that fate had pitted me against

this man, and one of us must fall.

Red Whisker made his salad (I wondered how they could eat it. Nothing

should have induced ME to touch it!) and voted himself into the charge

of the wine-cellar, which he constructed, being an ingenious beast, in

the hollow trunk of a tree. By and by, I saw him, with the majority of a

lobster on his plate, eating his dinner at the feet of Dora!

I have but an indistinct idea of what happened for some time after this

baleful object presented itself to my view. I was very merry, I know;

but it was hollow merriment. I attached myself to a young creature in

pink, with little eyes, and flirted with her desperately. She received

my attentions with favour; but whether on my account solely, or because

she had any designs on Red Whisker, I can’t say. Dora’s health was

drunk. When I drank it, I affected to interrupt my conversation for that

purpose, and to resume it immediately afterwards. I caught Dora’s eye as

I bowed to her, and I thought it looked appealing. But it looked at me

over the head of Red Whisker, and I was adamant.

The young creature in pink had a mother in green; and I rather think the

latter separated us from motives of policy. Howbeit, there was a general

breaking up of the party, while the remnants of the dinner were being

put away; and I strolled off by myself among the trees, in a raging and

remorseful state. I was debating whether I should pretend that I was not

well, and fly--I don’t know where--upon my gallant grey, when Dora and

Miss Mills met me.

‘Mr. Copperfield,’ said Miss Mills, ‘you are dull.’

I begged her pardon. Not at all.

‘And Dora,’ said Miss Mills, ‘YOU are dull.’

Oh dear no! Not in the least.

‘Mr. Copperfield and Dora,’ said Miss Mills, with an almost venerable

air. ‘Enough of this. Do not allow a trivial misunderstanding to wither

the blossoms of spring, which, once put forth and blighted, cannot be

renewed. I speak,’ said Miss Mills, ‘from experience of the past--the

remote, irrevocable past. The gushing fountains which sparkle in the

sun, must not be stopped in mere caprice; the oasis in the desert of

Sahara must not be plucked up idly.’

I hardly knew what I did, I was burning all over to that extraordinary

extent; but I took Dora’s little hand and kissed it--and she let me!

I kissed Miss Mills’s hand; and we all seemed, to my thinking, to go

straight up to the seventh heaven. We did not come down again. We stayed

up there all the evening. At first we strayed to and fro among the

trees: I with Dora’s shy arm drawn through mine: and Heaven knows,

folly as it all was, it would have been a happy fate to have been struck

immortal with those foolish feelings, and have stayed among the trees

for ever!

But, much too soon, we heard the others laughing and talking, and

calling ‘where’s Dora?’ So we went back, and they wanted Dora to sing.

Red Whisker would have got the guitar-case out of the carriage, but Dora

told him nobody knew where it was, but I. So Red Whisker was done for

in a moment; and I got it, and I unlocked it, and I took the guitar out,

and I sat by her, and I held her handkerchief and gloves, and I drank in

every note of her dear voice, and she sang to ME who loved her, and all

the others might applaud as much as they liked, but they had nothing to

do with it!

I was intoxicated with joy. I was afraid it was too happy to be real,

and that I should wake in Buckingham Street presently, and hear Mrs.

Crupp clinking the teacups in getting breakfast ready. But Dora sang,

and others sang, and Miss Mills sang--about the slumbering echoes in the

caverns of Memory; as if she were a hundred years old--and the evening

came on; and we had tea, with the kettle boiling gipsy-fashion; and I

was still as happy as ever.

I was happier than ever when the party broke up, and the other people,