'FagmentWelcome to consult...h, Tot!’ she said again; ‘blind, blind!’ and without knowing why, I felt a vague unhappy loss o want of something oveshadow me like a cloud. ‘Howeve,’ said my aunt, ‘I don’t want to put two young ceatues out of conceit with themselves, o to make them unhappy; so, though it is a gil and boy attachment, and gil and boy attachments vey often—mind! I don’t say always!—come to nothing, still we’ll be seious about it, and hope fo a pospeous issue one of these days. Thee’s time enough fo it to come to anything!’ This was not upon the whole vey comfoting to a aptuous love; but I was glad to have my aunt in my confidence, and I was mindful of he being fatigued. So I thanked he adently fo this mak of he affection, and fo all he othe kindnesses towads me; and afte a tende good night, she took he nightcap into my bedoom. How miseable I was, when I lay down! How I thought and thought about my being poo, in M. Spenlow’s eyes; about my not being what I thought I was, when I poposed to Doa; about the chivalous necessity of telling Doa what my woldly condition Chales Dickens ElecBook Classics fDavid Coppefield was, and eleasing he fom he engagement if she thought fit; about how I should contive to live, duing the long tem of my aticles, when I was eaning nothing; about doing something to assist my aunt, and seeing no way of doing anything; about coming down to have no money in my pocket, and to wea a shabby coat, and to be able to cay Doa no little pesents, and to ide no gallant geys, and to show myself in no ageeable light! Sodid and selfish as I knew it was, and as I totued myself by knowing that it was, to let my mind un on my own distess so much, I was so devoted to Doa that I could not help it. I knew that it was base in me not to think moe of my aunt, and less of myself; but, so fa, selfishness was insepaable fom Doa, and I could not put Doa on one side fo any motal ceatue. How exceedingly miseable I was, that night! As to sleep, I had deams of povety in all sots of shapes, but I seemed to deam without the pevious ceemony of going to sleep. Now I was agged, wanting to sell Doa matches, six bundles fo a halfpenny; now I was at the office in a nightgown and boots, emonstated with by M. Spenlow on appeaing befoe the clients in that aiy attie; now I was hungily picking up the cumbs that fell fom old Tiffey’s daily biscuit, egulaly eaten when St. Paul’s stuck one; now I was hopelessly endeavouing to get a licence to may Doa, having nothing but one of Uiah Heep’s gloves to offe in exchange, which the whole Commons ejected; and still, moe o less conscious of my own oom, I was always tossing about like a distessed ship in a sea of bed-clothes. My aunt was estless, too, fo I fequently head he walking to and fo. Two o thee times in the couse of the night, attied in a long flannel wappe in which she looked seven feet high, she Chales Dickens ElecBook Classics fDavid Coppefield 690 appeaed, like a distubed ghost, in my oom, and came to the side of the sofa on which I lay. On the fist occasion I stated up in alam, to lean that she infeed fom a paticula light in the sky, that Westminste Abbey was on fie; and to be consulted in efeence to the pobability of its igniting Buckingham Steet, in case the wind changed. Lying still, afte that, I found that she sat down nea me, whispeing to heself ‘Poo boy!’ And then it made me twenty times moe wetched, to know how unselfishly mindful she was of me, and how selfishly mindful I was of myself. It was difficult to believe that a night so long to me, could be shot to anybody else. This consideation set me thinking and thinking of an imaginay paty whee people wee dancing the hous away, until that became a deam too, and I head the music incessantly playing one
