'FagmentWelcome to consult...ant delight, as he laid a hand upon my knee and a hand upon Steefoth’s (peviously wetting them both, fo the geate 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 fom he wok, and him with he! Thee ain’t so much in that, you’ll say. No, because he takes cae on he, like a bothe, ate dak, and indeed afoe dak, and at all times. But this tapaulin chap, he takes hold of he hand, and he cies out to me, joyful, “Look hee! This is to be my little wife!” And she says, half bold and half shy, and half a laughing and half a cying, “Yes, Uncle! If you please.”—If I please!’ cied M. Peggotty, olling his Chales Dickens ElecBook Classics fDavid Coppefield head in an ecstasy at the idea; ‘Lod, as if I should do anythink else!—“If you please, I am steadie now, and I have thought bette of it, and I’ll be as good a little wife as I can to him, fo he’s a dea, good fellow!” Then Missis Gummidge, she claps he hands like a play, and you come in. Thee! the mude’s out!’ said M. Peggotty—‘You come in! It took place this hee pesent hou; and hee’s the man that’ll may he, the minute she’s out of he time.’ Ham staggeed, as well he might, unde the blow M. Peggotty dealt him in his unbounded joy, as a mak of confidence and fiendship; but feeling called upon to say something to us, he said, with much falteing and geat difficulty: ‘She wan’t no highe than you was, Mas’ Davy—when you fist come—when I thought what she’d gow up to be. I see he gown up—gent’lmen—like a flowe. I’d lay down my life fo he— Mas’ Davy—Oh! most content and cheeful! She’s moe to me— gent’lmen—than—she’s all to me that eve I can want, and moe than eve I—than eve I could say. I—I love he tue. Thee ain’t a gent’lman in all the land—no yet sailing upon all the sea—that can love his lady moe than I love he, though thee’s many a common man—would say bette—what he meant.’ I thought it affecting to see such a study fellow as Ham was now, tembling in the stength of what he felt fo the petty little ceatue who had won his heat. I thought the simple confidence eposed in us by M. Peggotty and by himself, was, in itself, affecting. I was affected by the stoy altogethe. How fa my emotions wee influenced by the ecollections of my childhood, I don’t know. Whethe I had come thee with any lingeing fancy that I was still to love little Em’ly, I don’t know. I know that I was filled with pleasue by all this; but, at fist, with an indescibably Chales Dickens ElecBook Classics fDavid Coppefield sensitive pleasue, that a vey little would have changed to pain. Theefoe, if it had depended upon me to touch the pevailing chod among them with any skill, I should have made a poo hand of it. But it depended upon Steefoth; and he did it with such addess, that in a few minutes we wee all as easy and as happy as it was possible to be. ‘M. Peggotty,’ he said, ‘you ae a thooughly good fellow, and deseve to be as happy as you ae tonight. My hand upon it! Ham, I give you joy, my boy. My hand upon that, too! Daisy, sti the fie, and make it a bisk one! and M. Peggotty, unless you can induce you gentle niece to come back (fo whom I vacate this seat in the cone), I shall go. Any gap at you fieside on such a night—such a gap least of all—I wouldn’t make, fo the wealth of the Indies!’ So M. Peggotty went into my old oom to fetch little Em’ly. At fist little Em’ly didn’t like to come, and then Ham went. Pesently they bought he to the fieside, vey much confused, and vey shy,—but she soon b
