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the companionship of the steady, plain, hard-working qualities, and

hope to gain its end. There is no such thing as such fulfilment on this

earth. Some happy talent, and some fortunate opportunity, may form the

two sides of the ladder on which some men mount, but the rounds of that

ladder must be made of stuff to stand wear and tear; and there is no

substitute for thorough-going, ardent, and sincere earnestness. Never

to put one hand to anything, on which I could throw my whole self; and

never to affect depreciation of my work, whatever it was; I find, now,

to have been my golden rules.

How much of the practice I have just reduced to precept, I owe to Agnes,

I will not repeat here. My narrative proceeds to Agnes, with a thankful

love.

She came on a visit of a fortnight to the Doctor’s. Mr. Wickfield was

the Doctor’s old friend, and the Doctor wished to talk with him, and

do him good. It had been matter of conversation with Agnes when she was

last in town, and this visit was the result. She and her father came

together. I was not much surprised to hear from her that she had engaged

to find a lodging in the neighbourhood for Mrs. Heep, whose rheumatic

complaint required change of air, and who would be charmed to have it in

such company. Neither was I surprised when, on the very next day, Uriah,

like a dutiful son, brought his worthy mother to take possession.

‘You see, Master Copperfield,’ said he, as he forced himself upon my

company for a turn in the Doctor’s garden, ‘where a person loves, a

person is a little jealous--leastways, anxious to keep an eye on the

beloved one.’

‘Of whom are you jealous, now?’ said I.

‘Thanks to you, Master Copperfield,’ he returned, ‘of no one in

particular just at present--no male person, at least.’

‘Do you mean that you are jealous of a female person?’

He gave me a sidelong glance out of his sinister red eyes, and laughed.

‘Really, Master Copperfield,’ he said, ‘--I should say Mister, but I

know you’ll excuse the abit I’ve got into--you’re so insinuating, that

you draw me like a corkscrew! Well, I don’t mind telling you,’ putting

his fish-like hand on mine, ‘I’m not a lady’s man in general, sir, and I

never was, with Mrs. Strong.’

His eyes looked green now, as they watched mine with a rascally cunning.

‘What do you mean?’ said I.

‘Why, though I am a lawyer, Master Copperfield,’ he replied, with a dry

grin, ‘I mean, just at present, what I say.’

‘And what do you mean by your look?’ I retorted, quietly.

‘By my look? Dear me, Copperfield, that’s sharp practice! What do I mean

by my look?’

‘Yes,’ said I. ‘By your look.’

He seemed very much amused, and laughed as heartily as it was in his

nature to laugh. After some scraping of his chin with his hand, he went

on to say, with his eyes cast downward--still scraping, very slowly:

‘When I was but an umble clerk, she always looked down upon me. She was

for ever having my Agnes backwards and forwards at her ouse, and she was

for ever being a friend to you, Master Copperfield; but I was too far

beneath her, myself, to be noticed.’

‘Well?’ said I; ‘suppose you were!’

‘--And beneath him too,’ pursued Uriah, very distinctly, and in a

meditative tone of voice, as he continued to scrape his chin.

‘Don’t you know the Doctor better,’ said I, ‘than to suppose him

conscious of your existence, when you were not before him?’

He directed his eyes at me in that sidelong glance again, and he made

his face very lantern-jawed, for the greater convenience of scraping, as

he answered:

‘Oh dear, I am not referring to the Doctor! Oh no, poor man! I mean Mr.

Maldon!’

My heart quite died within me. All my old doubts and apprehensions on

that subject, all the Doctor’s happiness and peace, all the mingled

possibilities of innocence and compromise, that I could not unravel, I

saw, in a moment, at the mercy of this fellow’s twisting.

‘He never could come into the office, without ordering and shoving me

about,’ said Uriah. ‘One of your fine gentlemen he was! I was very meek

and umble--and I am. But I didn’t like that sort of thing--and I don’t!’

He left off scraping his chin, and sucked in his cheeks until they

seemed to meet inside; keeping his sidelong glance upon me all the

while.

‘She is one of your lovely women, she is,’ he pursued, when he had

slowly restored his face to its natural form; ‘and ready to be no friend

to such as me, I know. She’s just the person as would put my Agnes up

to higher sort of game. Now, I ain’t one of your lady’s men, Master

Copperfield; but I’ve had eyes in my ed, a pretty long time back. We

umble ones have got eyes, mostly speaking--and we look out of ‘em.’

I endeavoured to appear unconscious and not disquieted, but, I saw in

his face, with poor success.

‘Now, I’m not a-going to let myself be run down, Copperfield,’ he

continued, raising that part of his countenance, where his red eyebrows

would have been if he had had any, with malignant triumph, ‘and I shall

do what I can to put a stop to this friendship. I don’t approve of it.

I don’t mind acknowledging to you that I’ve got rather a grudging

disposition, and want to keep off all intruders. I ain’t a-going, if I

know it, to run the risk of being plotted against.’

‘You are always plotting, and delude yourself into the belief that

everybody else is doing the like, I think,’ said I.

‘Perhaps so, Master Copperfield,’ he replied. ‘But I’ve got a motive, as

my fellow-partner used to say; and I go at it tooth and nail. I mustn’t

be put upon, as a numble person, too much. I can’t allow people in my

way. Really they must come out of the cart, Master Copperfield!’

‘I don’t understand you,’ said I.

‘Don’t you, though?’ he returned, with one of his jerks. ‘I’m astonished

at that, Master Copperfield, you being usually so quick! I’ll try to be

plainer, another time.---Is that Mr. Maldon a-norseback, ringing at the

gate, sir?’

‘It looks like him,’ I replied, as carelessly as I could.

Uriah stopped short, put his hands between his great knobs of knees, and

doubled himself up with laughter. With perfectly silent laughter. Not

a sound escaped from him. I was so repelled by his odious behaviour,

particularly by this concluding instance, that I turned away without any

ceremony; and left him doubled up in the middle of the garden, like a

scarecrow in want of support.

It was not on that evening; but, as I well remember, on the next evening

but one, which was a Sunday; that I took Agnes to see Dora. I had

arranged the visit, beforehand, with Miss Lavinia; and Agnes was

expected to tea.

I was in a flutter of pride and anxiety; pride in my dear little

betrothed, and anxiety that Agnes should like her. All the way to

Putney, Agnes being inside the stage-coach, and I outside, I pictured

Dora to myself in every one of the pretty looks I knew so well; now

making up my mind that I should like her to look exactly as she looked

at such a time, and then doubting whether I should not prefer her

looking as she looked at such another time; and almost worrying myself

into a fever about it.

I was troubled by no doubt of her being very pretty, in any case; but

it fell out that I had never seen her look so well. She was not in the

drawing-room when I presented Agnes to her little aunts, but was shyly

keeping out of the way. I knew where to look for her, now; and sure

enough I found her stopping her ears again, behind the same dull old

door.

At first she wouldn’t come at all; and then she pleaded for five minutes

by my watch. When at length she put her arm through mine, to be taken

to the drawing-room, her charming little face was flushed, and had never

been so pretty. But, when we went into the room, and it turned pale, she

was ten thousand times prettier yet.

Dora was afraid of Agnes. She had told me that she knew Agnes was

‘too clever’. But when she saw her looking at once so cheerful and so

earnest, and so thoughtful, and so good, she gave a faint little cry of

pleased surprise, and just put her affectionate arms round Agnes’s neck,

and laid her innocent cheek against her face.

I never was so happy. I never was so pleased as when I saw those two sit

down together, side by side. As when I saw my little darling looking up

so naturally to those cordial eyes. As when I saw the tender, beautiful

regard which Agnes cast upon her.

Miss Lavinia and Miss Clarissa partook, in their way, of my joy. It was

the pleasantest tea-table in the world. Miss Clarissa presided. I cut

and handed the sweet seed-cake--the little sisters had a bird-like

fondness for picking up seeds and pecking at sugar; Miss Lavinia looked

on with benignant patronage, as if our happy love were all her work; and

we were perfectly contented with ourselves and one another.

The gentle cheerfulness of Agnes went to all their hearts. Her quiet

interest in everything that interested Dora; her manner of making

acquaintance with Jip (who responded instantly); her pleasant way, when

Dora was ashamed to come over to her usual seat by me; her modest grace

and ease, eliciting a crowd of blushing little marks of confidence from

Dora; seemed to make our circle quite complete.

‘I am so glad,’ said Dora, after tea, ‘that you like me. I didn’t think

you would; and I want, more than ever, to be liked, now Julia Mills is

gone.’

I have omitted to mention it, by the by. Miss Mills had sailed, and Dora

and I had gone aboard a great East Indiaman at Gravesend to see her;

and we had had preserved ginger, and guava, and other delicacies of that

sort for lunch; and we had left Miss Mills weeping on a camp-stool on

the quarter-deck, with a large new diary under her arm, in which the

original reflections awakened by the contemplation of Ocean were to be

recorded under lock and key.

Agnes said she was afraid I must have given her an unpromising

character; but Dora corrected that directly.

‘Oh no!’ she said, shaking her curls at me; ‘it was all praise. He

thinks so much of your opinion, that I was quite afraid of it.’

‘My good opinion cannot strengthen his attachment to some people whom he

knows,’ said Agnes, with a smile; ‘it is not worth their having.’

‘But please let me have it,’ said Dora, in her coaxing way, ‘if you

can!’

We made merry about Dora’s wanting to be liked, and Dora said I was a

goose, and she didn’t like me at any rate, and the short evening flew

away on gossamer-wings. The time was at hand when the coach was to call

for us. I was standing alone before the fire, when Dora came stealing

softly in, to give me that usual precious little kiss before I went.

‘Don’t you think, if I had had her for a friend a long time ago, Doady,’

said Dora, her bright eyes shining very brightly, and her little right

hand idly busying itself with one of the buttons of my coat, ‘I might

have been more clever perhaps?’

‘My love!’ said I, ‘what nonsense!’

‘Do you think it is nonsense?’ returned Dora, without looking at me.

‘Are you sure it is?’

‘Of course I am!’ ‘I have forgotten,’ said Dora, still turning the

button round and round, ‘what relation Agnes is to you, you dear bad

boy.’

‘No blood-relation,’ I replied; ‘but we were brought up together, like

brother and sister.’

‘I wonder why you ever fell in love with me?’ said Dora, beginning on

another button of my coat.

‘Perhaps because I couldn’t see you, and not love you, Dora!’

‘Suppose you had never seen me at all,’ said Dora, going to another

button.

‘Suppose we had never been born!’ said I, gaily.

I wondered what she was thinking about, as I glanced in admiring silence

at the little soft hand travelling up the row of buttons on my coat, and

at the clustering hair that lay against my breast, and at the lashes of

her downcast eyes, slightly rising as they followed her idle fingers. At

length her eyes were lifted up to mine, and she stood on tiptoe to

give me, more thoughtfully than usual, that precious little kiss--once,

twice, three times--and went out of the room.

They all came back together within five minutes afterwards, and Dora’s

unusual thoughtfulness was quite gone then. She was laughingly resolved

to put Jip through the whole of his performances, before the coach came.

They took some time (not so much on account of their variety, as Jip’s

reluctance), and were still unfinished when it was heard at the door.

There was a hurried but affectionate parting between Agnes and herself;

and Dora was to write to Agnes (who was not to mind her letters being

foolish, she said), and Agnes was to write to Dora; and they had a

second parting at the coach door, and a third when Dora, in spite of

the remonstrances of Miss Lavinia, would come running out once more to

remind Agnes at the coach window about writing, and to shake her curls

at me on the box.

The stage-coach was to put us down near Covent Garden, where we were

to take another stage-coach for Highgate. I was impatient for the short

walk in the interval, that Agnes might praise Dora to me. Ah! what

praise it was! How lovingly and fervently did it commend the pretty

creature I had won, with all her artless graces best displayed, to my

most gentle care! How thoughtfully remind me, yet with no pretence of

doing so, of the trust in which I held the orphan child!

Never, never, had I loved Dora so deeply and truly, as I loved her that

night. When we had again alighted, and were walking in the starlight

along the quiet road that led to the Doctor’s house, I told Agnes it was

her doing.

‘When you were sitting by her,’ said I, ‘you seemed to be no less her

guardian angel than mine; and you seem so now, Agnes.’

‘A poor angel,’ she returned, ‘but faithful.’

The clear tone of her voice, going straight to my heart, made it natural

to me to say:

‘The cheerfulness that belongs to you, Agnes (and to no one else that

ever I have seen), is so restored, I have observed today, that I have

begun to hope you are happier at home?’

‘I am happier in myself,’ she said; ‘I am quite cheerful and

light-hearted.’

I glanced at the serene face looking upward, and thought it was the

stars that made it seem so noble.

‘There has been no change at home,’ said Agnes, after a few moments.