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Charles Dickens
Chapter 45
Charles Dickens
 
 
1       It was a strange condition of things, the honeymoon being over, and
2  the bridesmaids gone home, when I found myself sitting down in my
3  own small house with Dora; quite thrown out of employment, as I may
4  say, in respect of the delicious old occupation of making love.

5       It seemed such an extraordinary thing to have Dora always there.
6  It was so unaccountable not to be obliged to go out to see her, not
7  to have any occasion to be tormenting myself about her, not to have
8  to write to her, not to be scheming and devising opportunities of
9  being alone with her. Sometimes of an evening, when I looked up
10  from my writing, and saw her seated opposite, I would lean back in
11  my chair, and think how queer it was that there we were, alone
12  together as a matter of course - nobody's business any more - all
13  the romance of our engagement put away upon a shelf, to rust - no
14  one to please but one another - one another to please, for life.

15       When there was a debate, and I was kept out very late, it seemed so
16  strange to me, as I was walking home, to think that Dora was at
17  home! It was such a wonderful thing, at first, to have her coming
18  softly down to talk to me as I ate my supper. It was such a
19  stupendous thing to know for certain that she put her hair in
20  papers. It was altogether such an astonishing event to see her do
21  it!

22       I doubt whether two young birds could have known less about keeping
23  house, than I and my pretty Dora did. We had a servant, of course.
24  She kept house for us. I have still a latent belief that she must
25  have been Mrs. Crupp's daughter in disguise, we had such an awful
26  time of it with Mary Anne.

27       Her name was Paragon. Her nature was represented to us, when we
28  engaged her, as being feebly expressed in her name. She had a
29  written character, as large as a proclamation; and, according to
30  this document, could do everything of a domestic nature that ever
31  I heard of, and a great many things that I never did hear of. She
32  was a woman in the prime of life; of a severe countenance; and
33  subject (particularly in the arms) to a sort of perpetual measles
34  or fiery rash. She had a cousin in the Life-Guards, with such long
35  legs that he looked like the afternoon shadow of somebody else.
36  His shell-jacket was as much too little for him as he was too big
37  for the premises. He made the cottage smaller than it need have
38  been, by being so very much out of proportion to it. Besides
39  which, the walls were not thick, and, whenever he passed the
40  evening at our house, we always knew of it by hearing one continual
41  growl in the kitchen.

42       Our treasure was warranted sober and honest. I am therefore
43  willing to believe that she was in a fit when we found her under
44  the boiler; and that the deficient tea-spoons were attributable to
45  the dustman.

46       But she preyed upon our minds dreadfully. We felt our
47  inexperience, and were unable to help ourselves. We should have
48  been at her mercy, if she had had any; but she was a remorseless
49  woman, and had none. She was the cause of our first little
50  quarrel.

51       'My dearest life,' I said one day to Dora, 'do you think Mary Anne
52  has any idea of time?'

53       'Why, Doady?' inquired Dora, looking up, innocently, from her
54  drawing.

55       'My love, because it's five, and we were to have dined at four.'

56       Dora glanced wistfully at the clock, and hinted that she thought it
57  was too fast.

58       'On the contrary, my love,' said I, referring to my watch, 'it's a
59  few minutes too slow.'

60       My little wife came and sat upon my knee, to coax me to be quiet,
61  and drew a line with her pencil down the middle of my nose; but I
62  couldn't dine off that, though it was very agreeable.

63       'Don't you think, my dear,' said I, 'it would be better for you to
64  remonstrate with Mary Anne?'

65       'Oh no, please! I couldn't, Doady!' said Dora.

66       'Why not, my love?' I gently asked.

67       'Oh, because I am such a little goose,' said Dora, 'and she knows
68  I am!'

69       I thought this sentiment so incompatible with the establishment of
70  any system of check on Mary Anne, that I frowned a little.

71       'Oh, what ugly wrinkles in my bad boy's forehead!' said Dora, and
72  still being on my knee, she traced them with her pencil; putting it
73  to her rosy lips to make it mark blacker, and working at my
74  forehead with a quaint little mockery of being industrious, that
75  quite delighted me in spite of myself.

76       'There's a good child,' said Dora, 'it makes its face so much
77  prettier to laugh.'
78  'But, my love,' said I.

79       'No, no! please!' cried Dora, with a kiss, 'don't be a naughty Blue
80  Beard! Don't be serious!'

81       'my precious wife,' said I, 'we must be serious sometimes. Come!
82  Sit down on this chair, close beside me! Give me the pencil!
83  There! Now let us talk sensibly. You know, dear'; what a little
84  hand it was to hold, and what a tiny wedding-ring it was to see!
85  'You know, my love, it is not exactly comfortable to have to go out
86  without one's dinner. Now, is it?'

87       'N-n-no!' replied Dora, faintly.

88       'My love, how you tremble!'

89       'Because I KNOW you're going to scold me,' exclaimed Dora, in a
90  piteous voice.

91       'My sweet, I am only going to reason.'

92       'Oh, but reasoning is worse than scolding!' exclaimed Dora, in
93  despair. 'I didn't marry to be reasoned with. If you meant to
94  reason with such a poor little thing as I am, you ought to have
95  told me so, you cruel boy!'

96       I tried to pacify Dora, but she turned away her face, and shook her
97  curls from side to side, and said, 'You cruel, cruel boy!' so many
98  times, that I really did not exactly know what to do: so I took a
99  few turns up and down the room in my uncertainty, and came back
100  again.

101       'Dora, my darling!'

102       'No, I am not your darling. Because you must be sorry that you
103  married me, or else you wouldn't reason with me!' returned Dora.

104       I felt so injured by the inconsequential nature of this charge,
105  that it gave me courage to be grave.

106       'Now, my own Dora,' said I, 'you are very childish, and are talking
107  nonsense. You must remember, I am sure, that I was obliged to go
108  out yesterday when dinner was half over; and that, the day before,
109  I was made quite unwell by being obliged to eat underdone veal in
110  a hurry; today, I don't dine at all - and I am afraid to say how
111  long we waited for breakfast - and then the water didn't boil. I
112  don't mean to reproach you, my dear, but this is not comfortable.'

113       'Oh, you cruel, cruel boy, to say I am a disagreeable wife!' cried
114  Dora.

115       'Now, my dear Dora, you must know that I never said that!'

116       'You said, I wasn't comfortable!' cried Dora.
117  'I said the housekeeping was not comfortable!'

118       'It's exactly the same thing!' cried Dora. And she evidently
119  thought so, for she wept most grievously.

120       I took another turn across the room, full of love for my pretty
121  wife, and distracted by self-accusatory inclinations to knock my
122  head against the door. I sat down again, and said:

123       'I am not blaming you, Dora. We have both a great deal to learn.
124  I am only trying to show you, my dear, that you must - you really
125  must' (I was resolved not to give this up) - 'accustom yourself to
126  look after Mary Anne. Likewise to act a little for yourself, and
127  me.'

128       'I wonder, I do, at your making such ungrateful speeches,' sobbed
129  Dora. 'When you know that the other day, when you said you would
130  like a little bit of fish, I went out myself, miles and miles, and
131  ordered it, to surprise you.'

132       'And it was very kind of you, my own darling,' said I. 'I felt it
133  so much that I wouldn't on any account have even mentioned that you
134  bought a Salmon - which was too much for two. Or that it cost one
135  pound six - which was more than we can afford.'

136       'You enjoyed it very much,' sobbed Dora. 'And you said I was a
137  Mouse.'

138       'And I'll say so again, my love,' I returned, 'a thousand times!'

139       But I had wounded Dora's soft little heart, and she was not to be
140  comforted. She was so pathetic in her sobbing and bewailing, that
141  I felt as if I had said I don't know what to hurt her. I was
142  obliged to hurry away; I was kept out late; and I felt all night
143  such pangs of remorse as made me miserable. I had the conscience
144  of an assassin, and was haunted by a vague sense of enormous
145  wickedness.

146       It was two or three hours past midnight when I got home. I found
147  my aunt, in our house, sitting up for me.

148       'Is anything the matter, aunt?' said I, alarmed.

149       'Nothing, Trot,' she replied. 'Sit down, sit down. Little Blossom
150  has been rather out of spirits, and I have been keeping her
151  company. That's all.'

152       I leaned my head upon my hand; and felt more sorry and downcast, as
153  I sat looking at the fire, than I could have supposed possible so
154  soon after the fulfilment of my brightest hopes. As I sat
155  thinking, I happened to meet my aunt's eyes, which were resting on
156  my face. There was an anxious expression in them, but it cleared
157  directly.

158       'I assure you, aunt,' said I, 'I have been quite unhappy myself all
159  night, to think of Dora's being so. But I had no other intention
160  than to speak to her tenderly and lovingly about our home-affairs.'

161       MY aunt nodded encouragement.

162       'You must have patience, Trot,' said she.

163       'Of course. Heaven knows I don't mean to be unreasonable, aunt!'

164       'No, no,' said my aunt. 'But Little Blossom is a very tender
165  little blossom, and the wind must be gentle with her.'

166       I thanked my good aunt, in my heart, for her tenderness towards my
167  wife; and I was sure that she knew I did.

168       'Don't you think, aunt,' said I, after some further contemplation
169  of the fire, 'that you could advise and counsel Dora a little, for
170  our mutual advantage, now and then?'

171       'Trot,' returned my aunt, with some emotion, 'no! Don't ask me
172  such a thing.'

173       Her tone was so very earnest that I raised my eyes in surprise.

174       'I look back on my life, child,' said my aunt, 'and I think of some
175  who are in their graves, with whom I might have been on kinder
176  terms. If I judged harshly of other people's mistakes in marriage,
177  it may have been because I had bitter reason to judge harshly of my
178  own. Let that pass. I have been a grumpy, frumpy, wayward sort of
179  a woman, a good many years. I am still, and I always shall be.
180  But you and I have done one another some good, Trot, - at all
181  events, you have done me good, my dear; and division must not come
182  between us, at this time of day.'

183       'Division between us!' cried I.

184       'Child, child!' said my aunt, smoothing her dress, 'how soon it
185  might come between us, or how unhappy I might make our Little
186  Blossom, if I meddled in anything, a prophet couldn't say. I want
187  our pet to like me, and be as gay as a butterfly. Remember your
188  own home, in that second marriage; and never do both me and her the
189  injury you have hinted at!'

190       I comprehended, at once, that my aunt was right; and I comprehended
191  the full extent of her generous feeling towards my dear wife.

192       'These are early days, Trot,' she pursued, 'and Rome was not built
193  in a day, nor in a year. You have chosen freely for yourself'; a
194  cloud passed over her face for a moment, I thought; 'and you have
195  chosen a very pretty and a very affectionate creature. It will be
196  your duty, and it will be your pleasure too - of course I know
197  that; I am not delivering a lecture - to estimate her (as you chose
198  her) by the qualities she has, and not by the qualities she may not
199  have. The latter you must develop in her, if you can. And if you
200  cannot, child,' here my aunt rubbed her nose, 'you must just
201  accustom yourself to do without 'em. But remember, my dear, your
202  future is between you two. No one can assist you; you are to work
203  it out for yourselves. This is marriage, Trot; and Heaven bless
204  you both, in it, for a pair of babes in the wood as you are!'

205       My aunt said this in a sprightly way, and gave me a kiss to ratify
206  the blessing.

207       'Now,' said she, 'light my little lantern, and see me into my
208  bandbox by the garden path'; for there was a communication between
209  our cottages in that direction. 'Give Betsey Trotwood's love to
210  Blossom, when you come back; and whatever you do, Trot, never dream
211  of setting Betsey up as a scarecrow, for if I ever saw her in the
212  glass, she's quite grim enough and gaunt enough in her private
213  capacity!'

214       With this my aunt tied her head up in a handkerchief, with which
215  she was accustomed to make a bundle of it on such occasions; and I
216  escorted her home. As she stood in her garden, holding up her
217  little lantern to light me back, I thought her observation of me
218  had an anxious air again; but I was too much occupied in pondering
219  on what she had said, and too much impressed - for the first time,
220  in reality - by the conviction that Dora and I had indeed to work
221  out our future for ourselves, and that no one could assist us, to
222  take much notice of it.

223       Dora came stealing down in her little slippers, to meet me, now
224  that I was alone; and cried upon my shoulder, and said I had been
225  hard-hearted and she had been naughty; and I said much the same
226  thing in effect, I believe; and we made it up, and agreed that our
227  first little difference was to be our last, and that we were never
228  to have another if we lived a hundred years.

229       The next domestic trial we went through, was the Ordeal of
230  Servants. Mary Anne's cousin deserted into our coal-hole, and was
231  brought out, to our great amazement, by a piquet of his companions
232  in arms, who took him away handcuffed in a procession that covered
233  our front-garden with ignominy. This nerved me to get rid of Mary
234  Anne, who went so mildly, on receipt of wages, that I was
235  surprised, until I found out about the tea-spoons, and also about
236  the little sums she had borrowed in my name of the tradespeople
237  without authority. After an interval of Mrs. Kidgerbury - the
238  oldest inhabitant of Kentish Town, I believe, who went out charing,
239  but was too feeble to execute her conceptions of that art - we
240  found another treasure, who was one of the most amiable of women,
241  but who generally made a point of falling either up or down the
242  kitchen stairs with the tray, and almost plunged into the parlour,
243  as into a bath, with the tea-things. The ravages committed by this
244  unfortunate, rendering her dismissal necessary, she was succeeded
245  (with intervals of Mrs. Kidgerbury) by a long line of Incapables;
246  terminating in a young person of genteel appearance, who went to
247  Greenwich Fair in Dora's bonnet. After whom I remember nothing but
248  an average equality of failure.

249       Everybody we had anything to do with seemed to cheat us. Our
250  appearance in a shop was a signal for the damaged goods to be
251  brought out immediately. If we bought a lobster, it was full of
252  water. All our meat turned out to be tough, and there was hardly
253  any crust to our loaves. In search of the principle on which
254  joints ought to be roasted, to be roasted enough, and not too much,
255  I myself referred to the Cookery Book, and found it there
256  established as the allowance of a quarter of an hour to every
257  pound, and say a quarter over. But the principle always failed us
258  by some curious fatality, and we never could hit any medium between
259  redness and cinders.

260       I had reason to believe that in accomplishing these failures we
261  incurred a far greater expense than if we had achieved a series of
262  triumphs. It appeared to me, on looking over the tradesmen's
263  books, as if we might have kept the basement storey paved with
264  butter, such was the extensive scale of our consumption of that
265  article. I don't know whether the Excise returns of the period may
266  have exhibited any increase in the demand for pepper; but if our
267  performances did not affect the market, I should say several
268  families must have left off using it. And the most wonderful fact
269  of all was, that we never had anything in the house.

270       As to the washerwoman pawning the clothes, and coming in a state of
271  penitent intoxication to apologize, I suppose that might have
272  happened several times to anybody. Also the chimney on fire, the
273  parish engine, and perjury on the part of the Beadle. But I
274  apprehend that we were personally fortunate in engaging a servant
275  with a taste for cordials, who swelled our running account for
276  porter at the public-house by such inexplicable items as 'quartern
277  rum shrub (Mrs. C.)'; 'Half-quartern gin and cloves (Mrs. C.)';
278  'Glass rum and peppermint (Mrs. C.)' - the parentheses always
279  referring to Dora, who was supposed, it appeared on explanation, to
280  have imbibed the whole of these refreshments.

281       One of our first feats in the housekeeping way was a little dinner
282  to Traddles. I met him in town, and asked him to walk out with me
283  that afternoon. He readily consenting, I wrote to Dora, saying I
284  would bring him home. It was pleasant weather, and on the road we
285  made my domestic happiness the theme of conversation. Traddles was
286  very full of it; and said, that, picturing himself with such a
287  home, and Sophy waiting and preparing for him, he could think of
288  nothing wanting to complete his bliss.

289       I could not have wished for a prettier little wife at the opposite
290  end of the table, but I certainly could have wished, when we sat
291  down, for a little more room. I did not know how it was, but
292  though there were only two of us, we were at once always cramped
293  for room, and yet had always room enough to lose everything in. I
294  suspect it may have been because nothing had a place of its own,
295  except Jip's pagoda, which invariably blocked up the main
296  thoroughfare. On the present occasion, Traddles was so hemmed in
297  by the pagoda and the guitar-case, and Dora's flower-painting, and
298  my writing-table, that I had serious doubts of the possibility of
299  his using his knife and fork; but he protested, with his own
300  good-humour, 'Oceans of room, Copperfield! I assure you, Oceans!'

301       There was another thing I could have wished, namely, that Jip had
302  never been encouraged to walk about the tablecloth during dinner.
303  I began to think there was something disorderly in his being there
304  at all, even if he had not been in the habit of putting his foot in
305  the salt or the melted butter. On this occasion he seemed to think
306  he was introduced expressly to keep Traddles at bay; and he barked
307  at my old friend, and made short runs at his plate, with such
308  undaunted pertinacity, that he may be said to have engrossed the
309  conversation.

310       However, as I knew how tender-hearted my dear Dora was, and how
311  sensitive she would be to any slight upon her favourite, I hinted
312  no objection. For similar reasons I made no allusion to the
313  skirmishing plates upon the floor; or to the disreputable
314  appearance of the castors, which were all at sixes and sevens, and
315  looked drunk; or to the further blockade of Traddles by wandering
316  vegetable dishes and jugs. I could not help wondering in my own
317  mind, as I contemplated the boiled leg of mutton before me,
318  previous to carving it, how it came to pass that our joints of meat
319  were of such extraordinary shapes - and whether our butcher
320  contracted for all the deformed sheep that came into the world; but
321  I kept my reflections to myself.

322       'My love,' said I to Dora, 'what have you got in that dish?'

323       I could not imagine why Dora had been making tempting little faces
324  at me, as if she wanted to kiss me.

325       'Oysters, dear,' said Dora, timidly.

326       'Was that YOUR thought?' said I, delighted.

327       'Ye-yes, Doady,' said Dora.

328       'There never was a happier one!' I exclaimed, laying down the
329  carving-knife and fork. 'There is nothing Traddles likes so much!'

330       'Ye-yes, Doady,' said Dora, 'and so I bought a beautiful little
331  barrel of them, and the man said they were very good. But I - I am
332  afraid there's something the matter with them. They don't seem
333  right.' Here Dora shook her head, and diamonds twinkled in her
334  eyes.

335       'They are only opened in both shells,' said I. 'Take the top one
336  off, my love.'

337       'But it won't come off!' said Dora, trying very hard, and looking
338  very much distressed.

339       'Do you know, Copperfield,' said Traddles, cheerfully examining the
340  dish, 'I think it is in consequence - they are capital oysters, but
341  I think it is in consequence - of their never having been opened.'

342       They never had been opened; and we had no oyster-knives - and
343  couldn't have used them if we had; so we looked at the oysters and
344  ate the mutton. At least we ate as much of it as was done, and
345  made up with capers. If I had permitted him, I am satisfied that
346  Traddles would have made a perfect savage of himself, and eaten a
347  plateful of raw meat, to express enjoyment of the repast; but I
348  would hear of no such immolation on the altar of friendship, and we
349  had a course of bacon instead; there happening, by good fortune, to
350  be cold bacon in the larder.

351       My poor little wife was in such affliction when she thought I
352  should be annoyed, and in such a state of joy when she found I was
353  not, that the discomfiture I had subdued, very soon vanished, and
354  we passed a happy evening; Dora sitting with her arm on my chair
355  while Traddles and I discussed a glass of wine, and taking every
356  opportunity of whispering in my ear that it was so good of me not
357  to be a cruel, cross old boy. By and by she made tea for us; which
358  it was so pretty to see her do, as if she was busying herself with
359  a set of doll's tea-things, that I was not particular about the
360  quality of the beverage. Then Traddles and I played a game or two
361  at cribbage; and Dora singing to the guitar the while, it seemed to
362  me as if our courtship and marriage were a tender dream of mine,
363  and the night when I first listened to her voice were not yet over.

364       When Traddles went away, and I came back into the parlour from
365  seeing him out, my wife planted her chair close to mine, and sat
366  down by my side. 'I am very sorry,' she said. 'Will you try to
367  teach me, Doady?'

368       'I must teach myself first, Dora,' said I. 'I am as bad as you,
369  love.'

370       'Ah! But you can learn,' she returned; 'and you are a clever,
371  clever man!'

372       'Nonsense, mouse!' said I.

373       'I wish,' resumed my wife, after a long silence, 'that I could have
374  gone down into the country for a whole year, and lived with Agnes!'

375       Her hands were clasped upon my shoulder, and her chin rested on
376  them, and her blue eyes looked quietly into mine.

377       'Why so?' I asked.

378       'I think she might have improved me, and I think I might have
379  learned from her,' said Dora.

380       'All in good time, my love. Agnes has had her father to take care
381  of for these many years, you should remember. Even when she was
382  quite a child, she was the Agnes whom we know,' said I.

383       'Will you call me a name I want you to call me?' inquired Dora,
384  without moving.

385       'What is it?' I asked with a smile.

386       'It's a stupid name,' she said, shaking her curls for a moment.
387  'Child-wife.'

388       I laughingly asked my child-wife what her fancy was in desiring to
389  be so called. She answered without moving, otherwise than as the
390  arm I twined about her may have brought her blue eyes nearer to me:

391       'I don't mean, you silly fellow, that you should use the name
392  instead of Dora. I only mean that you should think of me that way.
393  When you are going to be angry with me, say to yourself, "it's only
394  my child-wife!" When I am very disappointing, say, "I knew, a long
395  time ago, that she would make but a child-wife!" When you miss what
396  I should like to be, and I think can never be, say, "still my
397  foolish child-wife loves me!" For indeed I do.'

398       I had not been serious with her; having no idea until now, that she
399  was serious herself. But her affectionate nature was so happy in
400  what I now said to her with my whole heart, that her face became a
401  laughing one before her glittering eyes were dry. She was soon my
402  child-wife indeed; sitting down on the floor outside the Chinese
403  House, ringing all the little bells one after another, to punish
404  Jip for his recent bad behaviour; while Jip lay blinking in the
405  doorway with his head out, even too lazy to be teased.

406       This appeal of Dora's made a strong impression on me. I look back
407  on the time I write of; I invoke the innocent figure that I dearly
408  loved, to come out from the mists and shadows of the past, and turn
409  its gentle head towards me once again; and I can still declare that
410  this one little speech was constantly in my memory. I may not have
411  used it to the best account; I was young and inexperienced; but I
412  never turned a deaf ear to its artless pleading.

413       Dora told me, shortly afterwards, that she was going to be a
414  wonderful housekeeper. Accordingly, she polished the tablets,
415  pointed the pencil, bought an immense account-book, carefully
416  stitched up with a needle and thread all the leaves of the Cookery
417  Book which Jip had torn, and made quite a desperate little attempt
418  'to be good', as she called it. But the figures had the old
419  obstinate propensity - they WOULD NOT add up. When she had entered
420  two or three laborious items in the account-book, Jip would walk
421  over the page, wagging his tail, and smear them all out. Her own
422  little right-hand middle finger got steeped to the very bone in
423  ink; and I think that was the only decided result obtained.

424       Sometimes, of an evening, when I was at home and at work - for I
425  wrote a good deal now, and was beginning in a small way to be known
426  as a writer - I would lay down my pen, and watch my child-wife
427  trying to be good. First of all, she would bring out the immense
428  account-book, and lay it down upon the table, with a deep sigh.
429  Then she would open it at the place where Jip had made it illegible
430  last night, and call Jip up, to look at his misdeeds. This would
431  occasion a diversion in Jip's favour, and some inking of his nose,
432  perhaps, as a penalty. Then she would tell Jip to lie down on the
433  table instantly, 'like a lion' - which was one of his tricks,
434  though I cannot say the likeness was striking - and, if he were in
435  an obedient humour, he would obey. Then she would take up a pen,
436  and begin to write, and find a hair in it. Then she would take up
437  another pen, and begin to write, and find that it spluttered. Then
438  she would take up another pen, and begin to write, and say in a low
439  voice, 'Oh, it's a talking pen, and will disturb Doady!' And then
440  she would give it up as a bad job, and put the account-book away,
441  after pretending to crush the lion with it.

442       Or, if she were in a very sedate and serious state of mind, she
443  would sit down with the tablets, and a little basket of bills and
444  other documents, which looked more like curl-papers than anything
445  else, and endeavour to get some result out of them. After severely
446  comparing one with another, and making entries on the tablets, and
447  blotting them out, and counting all the fingers of her left hand
448  over and over again, backwards and forwards, she would be so vexed
449  and discouraged, and would look so unhappy, that it gave me pain to
450  see her bright face clouded - and for me! - and I would go softly
451  to her, and say:

452       'What's the matter, Dora?'

453       Dora would look up hopelessly, and reply, 'They won't come right.
454  They make my head ache so. And they won't do anything I want!'

455       Then I would say, 'Now let us try together. Let me show you,
456  Dora.'

457       Then I would commence a practical demonstration, to which Dora
458  would pay profound attention, perhaps for five minutes; when she
459  would begin to be dreadfully tired, and would lighten the subject
460  by curling my hair, or trying the effect of my face with my
461  shirt-collar turned down. If I tacitly checked this playfulness,
462  and persisted, she would look so scared and disconsolate, as she
463  became more and more bewildered, that the remembrance of her
464  natural gaiety when I first strayed into her path, and of her being
465  my child-wife, would come reproachfully upon me; and I would lay
466  the pencil down, and call for the guitar.

467       I had a great deal of work to do, and had many anxieties, but the
468  same considerations made me keep them to myself. I am far from
469  sure, now, that it was right to do this, but I did it for my
470  child-wife's sake. I search my breast, and I commit its secrets,
471  if I know them, without any reservation to this paper. The old
472  unhappy loss or want of something had, I am conscious, some place
473  in my heart; but not to the embitterment of my life. When I walked
474  alone in the fine weather, and thought of the summer days when all
475  the air had been filled with my boyish enchantment, I did miss
476  something of the realization of my dreams; but I thought it was a
477  softened glory of the Past, which nothing could have thrown upon
478  the present time. I did feel, sometimes, for a little while, that
479  I could have wished my wife had been my counsellor; had had more
480  character and purpose, to sustain me and improve me by; had been
481  endowed with power to fill up the void which somewhere seemed to be
482  about me; but I felt as if this were an unearthly consummation of
483  my happiness, that never had been meant to be, and never could have
484  been.

485       I was a boyish husband as to years. I had known the softening
486  influence of no other sorrows or experiences than those recorded in
487  these leaves. If I did any wrong, as I may have done much, I did
488  it in mistaken love, and in my want of wisdom. I write the exact
489  truth. It would avail me nothing to extenuate it now.

490       Thus it was that I took upon myself the toils and cares of our
491  life, and had no partner in them. We lived much as before, in
492  reference to our scrambling household arrangements; but I had got
493  used to those, and Dora I was pleased to see was seldom vexed now.
494  She was bright and cheerful in the old childish way, loved me
495  dearly, and was happy with her old trifles.

496       When the debates were heavy - I mean as to length, not quality, for
497  in the last respect they were not often otherwise - and I went home
498  late, Dora would never rest when she heard my footsteps, but would
499  always come downstairs to meet me. When my evenings were
500  unoccupied by the pursuit for which I had qualified myself with so
501  much pains, and I was engaged in writing at home, she would sit
502  quietly near me, however late the hour, and be so mute, that I
503  would often think she had dropped asleep. But generally, when I
504  raised my head, I saw her blue eyes looking at me with the quiet
505  attention of which I have already spoken.

506       'Oh, what a weary boy!' said Dora one night, when I met her eyes as
507  I was shutting up my desk.

508       'What a weary girl!' said I. 'That's more to the purpose. You
509  must go to bed another time, my love. It's far too late for you.'

510       'No, don't send me to bed!' pleaded Dora, coming to my side.
511  'Pray, don't do that!'

512       'Dora!' To my amazement she was sobbing on my neck. 'Not well, my
513  dear! not happy!'

514       'Yes! quite well, and very happy!' said Dora. 'But say you'll let
515  me stop, and see you write.'

516       'Why, what a sight for such bright eyes at midnight!' I replied.

517       'Are they bright, though?' returned Dora, laughing. 'I'm so glad
518  they're bright.'
519  'Little Vanity!' said I.

520       But it was not vanity; it was only harmless delight in my
521  admiration. I knew that very well, before she told me so.

522       'If you think them pretty, say I may always stop, and see you
523  write!' said Dora. 'Do you think them pretty?'

524       'Very pretty.'

525       'Then let me always stop and see you write.'

526       'I am afraid that won't improve their brightness, Dora.'

527       'Yes, it will! Because, you clever boy, you'll not forget me then,
528  while you are full of silent fancies. Will you mind it, if I say
529  something very, very silly? - more than usual?' inquired Dora,
530  peeping over my shoulder into my face.

531       'What wonderful thing is that?' said I.

532       'Please let me hold the pens,' said Dora. 'I want to have
533  something to do with all those many hours when you are so
534  industrious. May I hold the pens?'

535       The remembrance of her pretty joy when I said yes, brings tears
536  into my eyes. The next time I sat down to write, and regularly
537  afterwards, she sat in her old place, with a spare bundle of pens
538  at her side. Her triumph in this connexion with my work, and her
539  delight when I wanted a new pen - which I very often feigned to do
540  - suggested to me a new way of pleasing my child-wife. I
541  occasionally made a pretence of wanting a page or two of manuscript
542  copied. Then Dora was in her glory. The preparations she made for
543  this great work, the aprons she put on, the bibs she borrowed from
544  the kitchen to keep off the ink, the time she took, the innumerable
545  stoppages she made to have a laugh with Jip as if he understood it
546  all, her conviction that her work was incomplete unless she signed
547  her name at the end, and the way in which she would bring it to me,
548  like a school-copy, and then, when I praised it, clasp me round the
549  neck, are touching recollections to me, simple as they might appear
550  to other men.

551       She took possession of the keys soon after this, and went jingling
552  about the house with the whole bunch in a little basket, tied to
553  her slender waist. I seldom found that the places to which they
554  belonged were locked, or that they were of any use except as a
555  plaything for Jip - but Dora was pleased, and that pleased me. She
556  was quite satisfied that a good deal was effected by this
557  make-belief of housekeeping; and was as merry as if we had been
558  keeping a baby-house, for a joke.

559       So we went on. Dora was hardly less affectionate to my aunt than
560  to me, and often told her of the time when she was afraid she was
561  'a cross old thing'. I never saw my aunt unbend more
562  systematically to anyone. She courted Jip, though Jip never
563  responded; listened, day after day, to the guitar, though I am
564  afraid she had no taste for music; never attacked the Incapables,
565  though the temptation must have been severe; went wonderful
566  distances on foot to purchase, as surprises, any trifles that she
567  found out Dora wanted; and never came in by the garden, and missed
568  her from the room, but she would call out, at the foot of the
569  stairs, in a voice that sounded cheerfully all over the house:

570       'Where's Little Blossom?'

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