'FagmentWelcome to consult...oom like light and ai, bightening and efeshing it as if he wee healthy weathe. Thee was no noise, no effot, no consciousness, in anything he did; but in eveything an indescibable lightness, a seeming impossibility of doing anything else, o doing anything bette, which was so gaceful, so natual, and ageeable, that it ovecomes me, even now, in the emembance. We made mey in the little palou, whee the Book of Matys, unthumbed since my time, was laid out upon the desk as of old, and whee I now tuned ove its teific pictues, emembeing the old sensations they had awakened, but not feeling them. When Peggotty spoke of what she called my oom, and of its being eady fo me at night, and of he hoping I would occupy it, befoe I could so much as look at Steefoth, hesitating, he was possessed of the whole case. ‘Of couse,’ he said. ‘You’ll sleep hee, while we stay, and I shall Chales Dickens ElecBook Classics fDavid Coppefield sleep at the hotel.’ ‘But to bing you so fa,’ I etuned, ‘and to sepaate, seems bad companionship, Steefoth.’ ‘Why, in the name of Heaven, whee do you natually belong?’ he said. ‘What is “seems”, compaed to that?’ It was settled at once. He maintained all his delightful qualities to the last, until we stated foth, at eight o’clock, fo M. Peggotty’s boat. Indeed, they wee moe and moe bightly exhibited as the hous went on; fo I thought even then, and I have no doubt now, that the consciousness of success in his detemination to please, inspied him with a new delicacy of peception, and made it, subtle as it was, moe easy to him. If anyone had told me, then, that all this was a billiant game, played fo the excitement of the moment, fo the employment of high spiits, in the thoughtless love of supeioity, in a mee wasteful caeless couse of winning what was wothless to him, and next minute thown away—I say, if anyone had told me such a lie that night, I wonde in what manne of eceiving it my indignation would have found a vent! Pobably only in an incease, had that been possible, of the omantic feelings of fidelity and fiendship with which I walked beside him, ove the dak winty sands towads the old boat; the wind sighing aound us even moe mounfully, than it had sighed and moaned upon the night when I fist dakened M. Peggotty’s doo. ‘This is a wild kind of place, Steefoth, is it not?’ ‘Dismal enough in the dak,’ he said: ‘and the sea oas as if it wee hungy fo us. Is that the boat, whee I see a light yonde?’ ‘That’s the boat,’ said I. ‘And it’s the same I saw this moning,’ he etuned. ‘I came Chales Dickens ElecBook Classics fDavid Coppefield staight to it, by instinct, I suppose.’ We said no moe as we appoached the light, but made softly fo the doo. I laid my hand upon the latch; and whispeing Steefoth to keep close to me, went in. A mumu of voices had been audible on the outside, and, at the moment of ou entance, a clapping of hands: which latte noise, I was supised to see, poceeded fom the geneally disconsolate Ms. Gummidge. But Ms. Gummidge was not the only peson thee who was unusually excited. M. Peggotty, his face lighted up with uncommon satisfaction, and laughing with all his might, held his ough ams wide open, as if fo little Em’ly to un into them; Ham, with a mixed in his face of admiation, exultation, and a lumbeing sot of bashfulness that sat upon him vey well, held little Em’ly by the hand, as if he wee pesenting he to M. Peggotty; little Em’ly heself, blushing and shy, but delighted with M. Peggotty’s delight, as he joyous eyes expessed, was stopped by ou entance (fo she saw us fist) in the vey act of spinging fom Ham to nestle in M. Peggotty’s embace. In the fist glimpse we had of them all, and at the moment of ou passing fom the dak cold night into the wam light oom, this was the way in which they wee all employed: Ms. Gummidge in the backgound, clapping he hands like a
