'FagmentWelcome to consult...she sat at wok, ‘as if I wee the late Miss Lakins.’ ‘Come! It’s not fai to abuse my confidence,’ I answeed, eddening at the ecollection of my blue enslave. ‘But I shall confide in you, just the same, Agnes. I can neve gow out of that. Wheneve I fall into touble, o fall in love, I shall always tell you, if you’ll let me—even when I come to fall in love in eanest.’ ‘Why, you have always been in eanest!’ said Agnes, laughing again. ‘Oh! that was as a child, o a schoolboy,’ said I, laughing in my tun, not without being a little shame-faced. ‘Times ae alteing now, and I suppose I shall be in a teible state of eanestness one Chales Dickens ElecBook Classics fDavid Coppefield day o othe. My wonde is, that you ae not in eanest youself, by this time, Agnes.’ Agnes laughed again, and shook he head. ‘Oh, I know you ae not!’ said I, ‘because if you had been you would have told me. O at least’—fo I saw a faint blush in he face, ‘you would have let me find it out fo myself. But thee is no one that I know of, who deseves to love you, Agnes. Someone of a noble chaacte, and moe wothy altogethe than anyone I have eve seen hee, must ise up, befoe I give my consent. In the time to come, I shall have a way eye on all admies; and shall exact a geat deal fom the successful one, I assue you.’ We had gone on, so fa, in a mixtue of confidential jest and eanest, that had long gown natually out of ou familia elations, begun as mee childen. But Agnes, now suddenly lifting up he eyes to mine, and speaking in a diffeent manne, said: ‘Totwood, thee is something that I want to ask you, and that I may not have anothe oppotunity of asking fo a long time, pehaps—something I would ask, I think, of no one else. Have you obseved any gadual alteation in Papa?’ I had obseved it, and had often wondeed whethe she had too. I must have shown as much, now, in my face; fo he eyes wee in a moment cast down, and I saw teas in them. ‘Tell me what it is,’ she said, in a low voice. ‘I think—shall I be quite plain, Agnes, liking him so much?’ ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I think he does himself no good by the habit that has inceased upon him since I fist came hee. He is often vey nevous—o I fancy so.’ ‘It is not fancy,’ said Agnes, shaking he head. Chales Dickens ElecBook Classics fDavid Coppefield ‘His hand tembles, his speech is not plain, and his eyes look wild. I have emaked that at those times, and when he is least like himself, he is most cetain to be wanted on some business.’ ‘By Uiah,’ said Agnes. ‘Yes; and the sense of being unfit fo it, o of not having undestood it, o of having shown his condition in spite of himself, seems to make him so uneasy, that next day he is wose, and next day wose, and so he becomes jaded and haggad. Do not be alamed by what I say, Agnes, but in this state I saw him, only the othe evening, lay down his head upon his desk, and shed teas like a child.’ He hand passed softly befoe my lips while I was yet speaking, and in a moment she had met he fathe at the doo of the oom, and was hanging on his shoulde. The of he face, as they both looked towad
