CHAPTER 44 - OUR HOUSEKEEPING

It was a strange condition of things, the honeymoon being over, and

the bridesmaids gone home, when I found myself sitting down in my

own small house with Dora; quite thrown out of employment, as I may

say, in respect of the delicious old occupation of making love.

It seemed such an extraordinary thing to have Dora always there.

It was so unaccountable not to be obliged to go out to see her, not

to have any occasion to be tormenting myself about her, not to have

to write to her, not to be scheming and devising opportunities of

being alone with her. Sometimes of an evening, when I looked up

from my writing, and saw her seated opposite, I would lean back in

my chair, and think how queer it was that there we were, alone

together as a matter of course - nobody's business any more - all

the romance of our engagement put away upon a shelf, to rust - no

one to please but one another - one another to please, for life.

When there was a debate, and I was kept out very late, it seemed so

strange to me, as I was walking home, to think that Dora was at

home! It was such a wonderful thing, at first, to have her coming

softly down to talk to me as I ate my supper. It was such a

stupendous thing to know for certain that she put her hair in

papers. It was altogether such an astonishing event to see her do

it!

I doubt whether two young birds could have known less about keeping

house, than I and my pretty Dora did. We had a servant, of course.

She kept house for us. I have still a latent belief that she must

have been Mrs. Crupp's daughter in disguise, we had such an awful

time of it with Mary Anne.

Her name was Paragon. Her nature was represented to us, when we

engaged her, as being feebly expressed in her name. She had a

written character, as large as a proclamation; and, according to

this document, could do everything of a domestic nature that ever

I heard of, and a great many things that I never did hear of. She

was a woman in the prime of life; of a severe countenance; and

subject (particularly in the arms) to a sort of perpetual measles

or fiery rash. She had a cousin in the Life-Guards, with such long

legs that he looked like the afternoon shadow of somebody else.

His shell-jacket was as much too little for him as he was too big

for the premises. He made the cottage smaller than it need have

been, by being so very much out of proportion to it. Besides

which, the walls were not thick, and, whenever he passed the

evening at our house, we always knew of it by hearing one continual

growl in the kitchen.

Our treasure was warranted sober and honest. I am therefore

willing to believe that she was in a fit when we found her under

the boiler; and that the deficient tea-spoons were attributable to

the dustman.

But she preyed upon our minds dreadfully. We felt our

inexperience, and were unable to help ourselves. We should have

been at her mercy, if she had had any; but she was a remorseless

woman, and had none. She was the cause of our first little

quarrel.

'My dearest life,' I said one day to Dora, 'do you think Mary Anne

has any idea of time?'

'Why, Doady?' inquired Dora, looking up, innocently, from her

drawing.

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

Dora glanced wistfully at the clock, and hinted that she thought it

was too fast.

'On the contrary, my love,' said I, referring to my watch, 'it's a

few minutes too slow.'

My little wife came and sat upon my knee, to coax me to be quiet,

and drew a line with her pencil down the middle of my nose; but I

couldn't dine off that, though it was very agreeable.

'Don't you think, my dear,' said I, 'it would be better for you to

remonstrate with Mary Anne?'

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

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

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

I am!'

I thought this sentiment so incompatible with the establishment of

any system of check on Mary Anne, that I frowned a little.

'Oh, what ugly wrinkles in my bad boy's forehead!' said Dora, and

still being on my knee, she traced them with her pencil; putting it

to her rosy lips to make it mark blacker, and working at my

forehead with a quaint little mockery of being industrious, that

quite delighted me in spite of myself.

'There's a good child,' said Dora, 'it makes its face so much

prettier to laugh.'

'But, my love,' said I.

'No, no! please!' cried Dora, with a kiss, 'don't be a naughty Blue

Beard! Don't be serious!'

'my precious wife,' said I, 'we must be serious sometimes. Come!

Sit down on this chair, close beside me! Give me the pencil!

There! Now let us talk sensibly. You know, dear'; what a little

hand it was to hold, and what a tiny wedding-ring it was to see!

'You know, my love, it is not exactly comfortable to have to go out

without one's dinner. Now, is it?'

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

'My love, how you tremble!'

'Because I KNOW you're going to scold me,' exclaimed Dora, in a

piteous voice.

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

'Oh, but reasoning is worse than scolding!' exclaimed Dora, in

despair. 'I didn't marry to be reasoned with. If you meant to

reason with such a poor little thing as I am, you ought to have

told me so, you cruel boy!'

I tried to pacify Dora, but she turned away her face, and shook her

curls from side to side, and said, 'You cruel, cruel boy!' so many

times, that I really did not exactly know what to do: so I took a

few turns up and down the room in my uncertainty, and came back

again.

'Dora, my darling!'

'No, I am not your darling. Because you must be sorry that you

married me, or else you wouldn't reason with me!' returned Dora.

I felt so injured by the inconsequential nature of this charge,

that it gave me courage to be grave.

'Now, my own Dora,' said I, 'you are very childish, and are talking

nonsense. You must remember, I am sure, that I was obliged to go

out yesterday when dinner was half over; and that, the day before,

I was made quite unwell by being obliged to eat underdone veal in

a hurry; today, I don't dine at all - and I am afraid to say how

long we waited for breakfast - and then the water didn't boil. I

don't mean to reproach you, my dear, but this is not comfortable.'

'Oh, you cruel, cruel boy, to say I am a disagreeable wife!' cried

Dora.

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

'You said, I wasn't comfortable!' cried Dora.

'I said the housekeeping was not comfortable!'

'It's exactly the same thing!' cried Dora. And she evidently

thought so, for she wept most grievously.

I took another turn across the room, full of love for my pretty

wife, and distracted by self-accusatory inclinations to knock my

head against the door. I sat down again, and said:

'I am not blaming you, Dora. We have both a great deal to learn.

I am only trying to show you, my dear, that you must - you really

must' (I was resolved not to give this up) - 'accustom yourself to

look after Mary Anne. Likewise to act a little for yourself, and

me.'

'I wonder, I do, at your making such ungrateful speeches,' sobbed

Dora. 'When you know that the other day, when you said you would

like a little bit of fish, I went out myself, miles and miles, and

ordered it, to surprise you.'

'And it was very kind of you, my own darling,' said I. 'I felt it

so much that I wouldn't on any account have even mentioned that you

bought a Salmon - which was too much for two. Or that it cost one

pound six - which was more than we can afford.'

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

Mouse.'

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

But I had wounded Dora's soft little heart, and she was not to be

comforted. She was so pathetic in her sobbing and bewailing, that

I felt as if I had said I don't know what to hurt her. I was

obliged to hurry away; I was kept out late; and I felt all night

such pangs of remorse as made me miserable. I had the conscience

of an assassin, and was haunted by a vague sense of enormous

wickedness.

It was two or three hours past midnight when I got home. I found

my aunt, in our house, sitting up for me.

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

'Nothing, Trot,' she replied. 'Sit down, sit down. Little Blossom

has been rather out of spirits, and I have been keeping her

company. That's all.'

I leaned my head upon my hand; and felt more sorry and downcast, as

I sat looking at the fire, than I could have supposed possible so

soon after the fulfilment of my brightest hopes. As I sat

thinking, I happened to meet my aunt's eyes, which were resting on

my face. There was an anxious expression in them, but it cleared

directly.

'I assure you, aunt,' said I, 'I have been quite unhappy myself all

night, to think of Dora's being so. But I had no other intention

than to speak to her tenderly and lovingly about our home-affairs.'

MY aunt nodded encouragement.

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

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

'No, no,' said my aunt. 'But Little Blossom is a very tender

little blossom, and the wind must be gentle with her.'

I thanked my good aunt, in my heart, for her tenderness towards my

wife; and I was sure that she knew I did.

'Don't you think, aunt,' said I, after some further contemplation

of the fire, 'that you could advise and counsel Dora a little, for

our mutual advantage, now and then?'

'Trot,' returned my aunt, with some emotion, 'no! Don't ask me

such a thing.'

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

'I look back on my life, child,' said my aunt, 'and I think of some

who are in their graves, with whom I might have been on kinder

terms. If I judged harshly of other people's mistakes in marriage,

it may have been because I had bitter reason to judge harshly of my

own. Let that pass. I have been a grumpy, frumpy, wayward sort of

a woman, a good many years. I am still, and I always shall be.

But you and I have done one another some good, Trot, - at all

events, you have done me good, my dear; and division must not come

between us, at this time of day.'

'Division between us!' cried I.

'Child, child!' said my aunt, smoothing her dress, 'how soon it

might come between us, or how unhappy I might make our Little

Blossom, if I meddled in anything, a prophet couldn't say. I want

our pet to like me, and be as gay as a butterfly. Remember your

own home, in that second marriage; and never do both me and her the

injury you have hinted at!'

I comprehended, at once, that my aunt was right; and I comprehended

the full extent of her generous feeling towards my dear wife.

'These are early days, Trot,' she pursued, 'and Rome was not built

in a day, nor in a year. You have chosen freely for yourself'; a

cloud passed over her face for a moment, I thought; 'and you have

chosen a very pretty and a very affectionate creature. It will be

your duty, and it will be your pleasure too - of course I know

that; I am not delivering a lecture - to estimate her (as you chose

her) by the qualities she has, and not by the qualities she may not

have. The latter you must develop in her, if you can. And if you

cannot, child,' here my aunt rubbed her nose, 'you must just

accustom yourself to do without 'em. But remember, my dear, your

future is between you two. No one can assist you; you are to work

it out for yourselves. This is marriage, Trot; and Heaven bless

you both, in it, for a pair of babes in the wood as you are!'

My aunt said this in a sprightly way, and gave me a kiss to ratify

the blessing.

'Now,' said she, 'light my little lantern, and see me into my

bandbox by the garden path'; for there was a communication between

our cottages in that direction. 'Give Betsey Trotwood's love to

Blossom, when you come back; and whatever you do, Trot, never dream

of setting Betsey up as a scarecrow, for if I ever saw her in the

glass, she's quite grim enough and gaunt enough in her private

capacity!'

With this my aunt tied her head up in a handkerchief, with which

she was accustomed to make a bundle of it on such occasions; and I

escorted her home. As she stood in her garden, holding up her

little lantern to light me back, I thought her observation of me

had an anxious air again; but I was too much occupied in pondering

on what she had said, and too much impressed - for the first time,

in reality - by the conviction that Dora and I had indeed to work

out our future for ourselves, and that no one could assist us, to

take much notice of it.

Dora came stealing down in her little slippers, to meet me, now

that I was alone; and cried upon my shoulder, and said I had been

hard-hearted and she had been naughty; and I said much the same

thing in effect, I believe; and we made it up, and agreed that our

first little difference was to be our last, and that we were never

to have another if we lived a hundred years.

The next domestic trial we went through, was the Ordeal of

Servants. Mary Anne's cousin deserted into our coal-hole, and was

brought out, to our great amazement, by a piquet of his companions

in arms, who took him away handcuffed in a procession that covered

our front-garden with ignominy. This nerved me to get rid of Mary

Anne, who went so mildly, on receipt of wages, that I was

surprised, until I found out about the tea-spoons, and also about

the little sums she had borrowed in my name of the tradespeople

without authority. After an interval of Mrs. Kidgerbury - the

oldest inhabitant of Kentish Town, I believe, who went out charing,

but was too feeble to execute her conceptions of that art - we

found another treasure, who was one of the most amiable of women,

but who generally made a point of falling either up or down the

kitchen stairs with the tray, and almost plunged into the parlour,

as into a bath, with the tea-things. The ravages committed by this

unfortunate, rendering her dismissal necessary, she was succeeded

(with intervals of Mrs. Kidgerbury) by a long line of Incapables;

terminating in a young person of genteel appearance, who went to

Greenwich Fair in Dora's bonnet. After whom I remember nothing but

an average equality of failure.

Everybody we had anything to do with seemed to cheat us. Our

appearance in a shop was a signal for the damaged goods to be

brought out immediately. If we bought a lobster, it was full of

water. All our meat turned out to be tough, and there was hardly

any crust to our loaves. In search of the principle on which

joints ought to be roasted, to be roasted enough, and not too much,

I myself referred to the Cookery Book, and found it there

established as the allowance of a quarter of an hour to every

pound, and say a quarter over. But the principle always failed us

by some curious fatality, and we never could hit any medium between

redness and cinders.

I had reason to believe that in accomplishing these failures we

incurred a far greater expense than if we had achieved a series of

triumphs. It appeared to me, on looking over the tradesmen's

books, as if we might have kept the basement storey paved with

butter, such was the extensive scale of our consumption of that

article. I don't know whether the Excise returns of the period may

have exhibited any increase in the demand for pepper; but if our

performances did not affect the market, I should say several

families must have left off using it. And the most wonderful fact

of all was, that we never had anything in the house.

As to the washerwoman pawning the clothes, and coming in a state of

penitent intoxication to apologize, I suppose that might have

happened several times to anybody. Also the chimney on fire, the

parish engine, and perjury on the part of the Beadle. But I

apprehend that we were personally fortunate in engaging a servant

with a taste for cordials, who swelled our running account for

porter at the public-house by such inexplicable items as 'quartern

rum shrub (Mrs. C.)'; 'Half-quartern gin and cloves (Mrs. C.)';

'Glass rum and peppermint (Mrs. C.)' - the parentheses always

referring to Dora, who was supposed, it appeared on explanation, to

have imbibed the whole of these refreshments.

One of our first feats in the housekeeping way was a little dinner

to Traddles. I met him in town, and asked him to walk out with me

that afternoon. He readily consenting, I wrote to Dora, saying I

would bring him home. It was pleasant weather, and on the road we

made my domestic happiness the theme of conversation. Traddles was

very full of it; and said, that, picturing himself with such a

home, and Sophy waiting and preparing for him, he could think of

nothing wanting to complete his bliss.

I could not have wished for a prettier little wife at the opposite

end of the table, but I certainly could have wished, when we sat

down, for a little more room. I did not know how it was, but

though there were only two of us, we were at once always cramped

for room, and yet had always room enough to lose everything in. I

suspect it may have been because nothing had a place of its own,

except Jip's pagoda, which invariably blocked up the main

thoroughfare. On the present occasion, Traddles was so hemmed in

by the pagoda and the guitar-case, and Dora's flower-painting, and

my writing-table, that I had serious doubts of the possibility of

his using his knife and fork; but he protested, with his own

good-humour, 'Oceans of room, Copperfield! I assure you, Oceans!'

There was another thing I could have wished, namely, that Jip had

never been encouraged to walk about the tablecloth during dinner.

I began to think there was something disorderly in his being there

at all, even if he had not been in the habit of putting his foot in

the salt or the melted butter. On this occasion he seemed to think

he was introduced expressly to keep Traddles at bay; and he barked

at my old friend, and made short runs at his plate, with such

undaunted pertinacity, that he may be said to have engrossed the

conversation.

However, as I knew how tender-hearted my dear Dora was, and how

sensitive she would be to any slight upon her favourite, I hinted

no objection. For similar reasons I made no allusion to the

skirmishing plates upon the floor; or to the disreputable

appearance of the castors, which were all at sixes and sevens, and

looked drunk; or to the further blockade of Traddles by wandering

vegetable dishes and jugs. I could not help wondering in my own

mind, as I contemplated the boiled leg of mutton before me,

previous to carving it, how it came to pass that our joints of meat

were of such extraordinary shapes - and whether our butcher

contracted for all the deformed sheep that came into the world; but

I kept my reflections to myself.

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

I could not imagine why Dora had been making tempting little faces

at me, as if she wanted to kiss me.

'Oysters, dear,' said Dora, timidly.

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

'Ye-yes, Doady,' said Dora.

'There never was a happier one!' I exclaimed, laying down the

carving-knife and fork. 'There is nothing Traddles likes so much!'

'Ye-yes, Doady,' said Dora, 'and so I bought a beautiful little

barrel of them, and the man said they were very good. But I - I am

afraid there's something the matter with them. They don't seem

right.' Here Dora shook her head, and diamonds twinkled in her

eyes.

'They are only opened in both shells,' said I. 'Take the top one

off, my love.'

'But it won't come off!' said Dora, trying very hard, and looking

very much distressed.

'Do you know, Copperfield,' said Traddles, cheerfully examining the

dish, 'I think it is in consequence - they are capital oysters, but

I think it is in consequence - of their never having been opened.'

They never had been opened; and we had no oyster-knives - and

couldn't have used them if we had; so we looked at the oysters and

ate the mutton. At least we ate as much of it as was done, and

made up with capers. If I had permitted him, I am satisfied that

Traddles would have made a perfect savage of himself, and eaten a

plateful of raw meat, to express enjoyment of the repast; but I

would hear of no such immolation on the altar of friendship, and we

had a course of bacon instead; there happening, by good fortune, to

be cold bacon in the larder.

My poor little wife was in such affliction when she thought I

should be annoyed, and in such a state of joy when she found I was

not, that the discomfiture I had subdued, very soon vanished, and

we passed a happy evening; Dora sitting with her arm on my chair

while Traddles and I discussed a glass of wine, and taking every

opportunity of whispering in my ear that it was so good of me not

to be a cruel, cross old boy. By and by she made tea for us; which

it was so pretty to see her do, as if she was busying herself with

a set of doll's tea-things, that I was not particular about the

quality of the beverage. Then Traddles and I played a game or two

at cribbage; and Dora singing to the guitar the while, it seemed to

me as if our courtship and marriage were a tender dream of mine,

and the night when I first listened to her voice were not yet over.

When Traddles went away, and I came back into the parlour from

seeing him out, my wife planted her chair close to mine, and sat

down by my side. 'I am very sorry,' she said. 'Will you try to

teach me, Doady?'

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

love.'

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

clever man!'

'Nonsense, mouse!' said I.

'I wish,' resumed my wife, after a long silence, 'that I could have

gone down into the country for a whole year, and lived with Agnes!'

Her hands were clasped upon my shoulder, and her chin rested on

them, and her blue eyes looked quietly into mine.

'Why so?' I asked.

'I think she might have improved me, and I think I might have

learned from her,' said Dora.

'All in good time, my love. Agnes has had her father to take care

of for these many years, you should remember. Even when she was

quite a child, she was the Agnes whom we know,' said I.

'Will you call me a name I want you to call me?' inquired Dora,

without moving.

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

'It's a stupid name,' she said, shaking her curls for a moment.

'Child-wife.'

I laughingly asked my child-wife what her fancy was in desiring to

be so called. She answered without moving, otherwise than as the

arm I twined about her may have brought her blue eyes nearer to me:

'I don't mean, you silly fellow, that you should use the name

instead of Dora. I only mean that you should think of me that way.

When you are going to be angry with me, say to yourself, "it's only

my child-wife!" When I am very disappointing, say, "I knew, a long

time ago, that she would make but a child-wife!" When you miss what

I should like to be, and I think can never be, say, "still my

foolish child-wife loves me!" For indeed I do.'

I had not been serious with her; having no idea until now, that she

was serious herself. But her affectionate nature was so happy in

what I now said to her with my whole heart, that her face became a

laughing one before her glittering eyes were dry. She was soon my

child-wife indeed; sitting down on the floor outside the Chinese

House, ringing all the little bells one after another, to punish

Jip for his recent bad behaviour; while Jip lay blinking in the

doorway with his head out, even too lazy to be teased.

This appeal of Dora's made a strong impression on me. I look back

on the time I write of; I invoke the innocent figure that I dearly

loved, to come out from the mists and shadows of the past, and turn

its gentle head towards me once again; and I can still declare that

this one little speech was constantly in my memory. I may not have

used it to the best account; I was young and inexperienced; but I

never turned a deaf ear to its artless pleading.

Dora told me, shortly afterwards, that she was going to be a

wonderful housekeeper. Accordingly, she polished the tablets,

pointed the pencil, bought an immense account-book, carefully

stitched up with a needle and thread all the leaves of the Cookery

Book which Jip had torn, and made quite a desperate little attempt

'to be good', as she called it. But the figures had the old

obstinate propensity - they WOULD NOT add up. When she had entered

two or three laborious items in the account-book, Jip would walk

over the page, wagging his tail, and smear them all out. Her own

little right-hand middle finger got steeped to the very bone in

ink; and I think that was the only decided result obtained.

Sometimes, of an evening, when I was at home and at work - for I

wrote a good deal now, and was beginning in a small way to be known

as a writer - I would lay down my pen, and watch my child-wife

trying to be good. First of all, she would bring out the immense

account-book, and lay it down upon the table, with a deep sigh.

Then she would open it at the place where Jip had made it illegible

last night, and call Jip up, to look at his misdeeds. This would

occasion a diversion in Jip's favour, and some inking of his nose,

perhaps, as a penalty. Then she would tell Jip to lie down on the

table instantly, 'like a lion' - which was one of his tricks,

though I cannot say the likeness was striking - and, if he were in

an obedient humour, he would obey. Then she would take up a pen,

and begin to write, and find a hair in it. Then she would take up

another pen, and begin to write, and find that it spluttered. Then

she would take up another pen, and begin to write, and say in a low

voice, 'Oh, it's a talking pen, and will disturb Doady!' And then

she would give it up as a bad job, and put the account-book away,

after pretending to crush the lion with it.

Or, if she were in a very sedate and serious state of mind, she

would sit down with the tablets, and a little basket of bills and

other documents, which looked more like curl-papers than anything

else, and endeavour to get some result out of them. After severely

comparing one with another, and making entries on the tablets, and

blotting them out, and counting all the fingers of her left hand

over and over again, backwards and forwards, she would be so vexed

and discouraged, and would look so unhappy, that it gave me pain to

see her bright face clouded - and for me! - and I would go softly

to her, and say:

'What's the matter, Dora?'

Dora would look up hopelessly, and reply, 'They won't come right.

They make my head ache so. And they won't do anything I want!'

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

Dora.'

Then I would commence a practical demonstration, to which Dora

would pay profound attention, perhaps for five minutes; when she

would begin to be dreadfully tired, and would lighten the subject

by curling my hair, or trying the effect of my face with my

shirt-collar turned down. If I tacitly checked this playfulness,

and persisted, she would look so scared and disconsolate, as she

became more and more bewildered, that the remembrance of her

natural gaiety when I first strayed into her path, and of her being

my child-wife, would come reproachfully upon me; and I would lay

the pencil down, and call for the guitar.

I had a great deal of work to do, and had many anxieties, but the

same considerations made me keep them to myself. I am far from

sure, now, that it was right to do this, but I did it for my

child-wife's sake. I search my breast, and I commit its secrets,

if I know them, without any reservation to this paper. The old

unhappy loss or want of something had, I am conscious, some place

in my heart; but not to the embitterment of my life. When I walked

alone in the fine weather, and thought of the summer days when all

the air had been filled with my boyish enchantment, I did miss

something of the realization of my dreams; but I thought it was a

softened glory of the Past, which nothing could have thrown upon

the present time. I did feel, sometimes, for a little while, that

I could have wished my wife had been my counsellor; had had more

character and purpose, to sustain me and improve me by; had been

endowed with power to fill up the void which somewhere seemed to be

about me; but I felt as if this were an unearthly consummation of

my happiness, that never had been meant to be, and never could have

been.

I was a boyish husband as to years. I had known the softening

influence of no other sorrows or experiences than those recorded in

these leaves. If I did any wrong, as I may have done much, I did

it in mistaken love, and in my want of wisdom. I write the exact

truth. It would avail me nothing to extenuate it now.

Thus it was that I took upon myself the toils and cares of our

life, and had no partner in them. We lived much as before, in

reference to our scrambling household arrangements; but I had got

used to those, and Dora I was pleased to see was seldom vexed now.

She was bright and cheerful in the old childish way, loved me

dearly, and was happy with her old trifles.

When the debates were heavy - I mean as to length, not quality, for

in the last respect they were not often otherwise - and I went home

late, Dora would never rest when she heard my footsteps, but would

always come downstairs to meet me. When my evenings were

unoccupied by the pursuit for which I had qualified myself with so

much pains, and I was engaged in writing at home, she would sit

quietly near me, however late the hour, and be so mute, that I

would often think she had dropped asleep. But generally, when I

raised my head, I saw her blue eyes looking at me with the quiet

attention of which I have already spoken.

'Oh, what a weary boy!' said Dora one night, when I met her eyes as

I was shutting up my desk.

'What a weary girl!' said I. 'That's more to the purpose. You

must go to bed another time, my love. It's far too late for you.'

'No, don't send me to bed!' pleaded Dora, coming to my side.

'Pray, don't do that!'

'Dora!' To my amazement she was sobbing on my neck. 'Not well, my

dear! not happy!'

'Yes! quite well, and very happy!' said Dora. 'But say you'll let

me stop, and see you write.'

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

'Are they bright, though?' returned Dora, laughing. 'I'm so glad

they're bright.'

'Little Vanity!' said I.

But it was not vanity; it was only harmless delight in my

admiration. I knew that very well, before she told me so.

'If you think them pretty, say I may always stop, and see you

write!' said Dora. 'Do you think them pretty?'

'Very pretty.'

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

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

'Yes, it will! Because, you clever boy, you'll not forget me then,

while you are full of silent fancies. Will you mind it, if I say

something very, very silly? - more than usual?' inquired Dora,

peeping over my shoulder into my face.

'What wonderful thing is that?' said I.

'Please let me hold the pens,' said Dora. 'I want to have

something to do with all those many hours when you are so

industrious. May I hold the pens?'

The remembrance of her pretty joy when I said yes, brings tears

into my eyes. The next time I sat down to write, and regularly

afterwards, she sat in her old place, with a spare bundle of pens

at her side. Her triumph in this connexion with my work, and her

delight when I wanted a new pen - which I very often feigned to do

- suggested to me a new way of pleasing my child-wife. I

occasionally made a pretence of wanting a page or two of manuscript

copied. Then Dora was in her glory. The preparations she made for

this great work, the aprons she put on, the bibs she borrowed from

the kitchen to keep off the ink, the time she took, the innumerable

stoppages she made to have a laugh with Jip as if he understood it

all, her conviction that her work was incomplete unless she signed

her name at the end, and the way in which she would bring it to me,

like a school-copy, and then, when I praised it, clasp me round the

neck, are touching recollections to me, simple as they might appear

to other men.

She took possession of the keys soon after this, and went jingling

about the house with the whole bunch in a little basket, tied to

her slender waist. I seldom found that the places to which they

belonged were locked, or that they were of any use except as a

plaything for Jip - but Dora was pleased, and that pleased me. She

was quite satisfied that a good deal was effected by this

make-belief of housekeeping; and was as merry as if we had been

keeping a baby-house, for a joke.

So we went on. Dora was hardly less affectionate to my aunt than

to me, and often told her of the time when she was afraid she was

'a cross old thing'. I never saw my aunt unbend more

systematically to anyone. She courted Jip, though Jip never

responded; listened, day after day, to the guitar, though I am

afraid she had no taste for music; never attacked the Incapables,

though the temptation must have been severe; went wonderful

distances on foot to purchase, as surprises, any trifles that she

found out Dora wanted; and never came in by the garden, and missed

her from the room, but she would call out, at the foot of the

stairs, in a voice that sounded cheerfully all over the house:

'Where's Little Blossom?'

Read next: CHAPTER 45 - MR. DICK FULFILLS MY AUNT'S PREDICTIONS

Read previous: CHAPTER 43 - ANOTHER RETROSPECT

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