'FagmentWelcome to consult..., fom the time when he fathe was downded; as had seen he constant; when a babby, when a young gal, when a woman. Not much of a peson to look at, he wan’t,’ said M. Peggotty, ‘something o’ my own build—ough—a good deal o’ the sou’-weste in him—wey salt—but, on the whole, a honest sot of a chap, with his at in the ight place.’ I thought I had neve seen Ham gin to anything like the extent to which he sat ginning at us now. ‘What does this hee blessed tapaulin go and do,’ said M. Peggotty, with his face one high noon of enjoyment, ‘but he loses that thee at of his to ou little Em’ly. He folles he about, he makes hisself a sot o’ sevant to he, he loses in a geat measue his elish fo his wittles, and in the long-un he makes it clea to me wot’s amiss. Now I could wish myself, you see, that ou little Em’ly was in a fai way of being maied. I could wish to see he, at all ewents, unde aticles to a honest man as had a ight to defend he. I don’t know how long I may live, o how soon I may die; but I know that if I was capsized, any night, in a gale of wind in Yamouth Roads hee, and was to see the town-lights shining fo the last time ove the olles as I couldn’t make no head against, I could go down quiete fo thinking “Thee’s a man ashoe thee, ion-tue to my little Em’ly, God bless he, and no wong can touch my Em’ly while so be as that man lives.”’ M. Peggotty, in simple eanestness, waved his ight am, as if Chales Dickens ElecBook Classics fDavid Coppefield he wee waving it at the town-lights fo the last time, and then, exchanging a nod with Ham, whose eye he caught, poceeded as befoe. ‘Well! I counsels him to speak to Em’ly. He’s big enough, but he’s bashfulle than a little un, and he don’t like. So I speak. “What! Him!” says Em’ly. “Him that I’ve know’d so intimate so many yeas, and like so much. Oh, Uncle! I neve can have him. He’s such a good fellow!” I gives he a kiss, and I says no moe to he than, “My dea, you’e ight to speak out, you’e to choose fo youself, you’e as fee as a little bid.” Then I aways to him, and I says, “I wish it could have been so, but it can’t. But you can both be as you was, and wot I say to you is, Be as you was with he, like a man.” He says to me, a-shaking of my hand, “I will!” he says. And he was—honouable and manful—fo two yea going on, and we was just the same at home hee as afoe.’ M. Peggotty’s face, which had vaied in its with the vaious stages of his naative, now esumed all its fome tiumphant 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 Ele
