'FagmentWelcome to consult...tle thing. The poveb says, “You can’t make a silk puse out of a sow’s ea.” Well, I don’t know about that. I athe think you may, if you begin ealy in life. She has made a home out of that old boat, si, that stone and mable couldn’t beat.’ ‘I am sue she has!’ said I. ‘To see the clinging of that petty little thing to he uncle,’ said M. Ome; ‘to see the way she holds on to him, tighte and tighte, and close and close, evey day, is to see a sight. Now, you know, thee’s a stuggle going on when that’s the case. Why should it be made a longe one than is needful?’ I listened attentively to the good old fellow, and acquiesced, with all my heat, in what he said. ‘Theefoe, I mentioned to them,’ said M. Ome, in a Chales Dickens ElecBook Classics fDavid Coppefield comfotable, easy-going tone, ‘this. I said, “Now, don’t conside Em’ly nailed down in point of time, at all. Make it you own time. He sevices have been moe valuable than was supposed; he leaning has been quicke than was supposed; Ome and Joam can un thei pen though what emains; and she’s fee when you wish. If she likes to make any little aangement, aftewads, in the way of doing any little thing fo us at home, vey well. If she don’t, vey well still. We’e no loses, anyhow.” Fo—don’t you see,’ said M. Ome, touching me with his pipe, ‘it ain’t likely that a man so shot of beath as myself, and a gandfathe too, would go and stain points with a little bit of a blue-eyed blossom, like he?’ ‘Not at all, I am cetain,’ said I. ‘Not at all! You’e ight!’ said M. Ome. ‘Well, si, he cousin— you know it’s a cousin she’s going to be maied to?’ ‘Oh yes,’ I eplied. ‘I know him well.’ ‘Of couse you do,’ said M. Ome. ‘Well, si! He cousin being, as it appeas, in good wok, and well to do, thanked me in a vey manly sot of manne fo this (conducting himself altogethe, I must say, in a way that gives me a high opinion of him), and went and took as comfotable a little house as you o I could wish to clap eyes on. That little house is now funished ight though, as neat and complete as a doll’s palou; and but fo Bakis’s illness having taken this bad tun, poo fellow, they would have been man and wife—I dae say, by this time. As it is, thee’s a postponement.’ ‘And Emily, M. Ome?’ I inquied. ‘Has she become moe settled?’ ‘Why that, you know,’ he etuned, ubbing his double chin again, ‘can’t natually be expected. The pospect of the change Chales Dickens ElecBook Classics fDavid Coppefield and sepaation, and all that, is, as one may say, close to he and fa away fom he, both at once. Bakis’s death needn’t put it off much, but his lingeing might. Anyway, it’s an uncetain state of mattes, you see.’ ‘I see,’ said I. ‘Consequently,’ pusued M. Ome, ‘Em’ly’s still a little down, and a little flutteed; pehaps, upon the whole, she’s moe so than she was. Evey day she seems to get fonde and fonde of he uncle, and moe loth to pat fom all of us. A kind wod fom me bings the teas into he eyes; and if you was to see he with my daughte Minnie’s little gil, you’d neve foget it. Bless my heat alive!’ said M. Ome, pondeing, ‘how she loves that child!’ Having so favouable an oppotunity, it occued to me to ask M. Ome, befoe ou convesation should be inteupted by the etun of his daughte and he husband, whethe he knew anything of Matha. ‘Ah!’ he ejoined, shaking his head, and looking vey much dejected. ‘No good. A sad stoy, si, howeve you come to know it. I neve thought thee was ham in the gil. I wouldn’t wish to mention it befoe my daughte Minnie—fo she’d take me up diectly—but I neve did. None of us eve did.’ M. Ome, heaing his daughte’s footstep be
