'FagmentWelcome to consult...that, Maste Coppefield,’ said Uiah, ‘is, in fact, the confidence that I am going to take the libety of eposing. Umble as I am,’ he wiped his hands hade, and looked at them and at the fie by tuns, ’umble as my mothe is, and lowly as ou poo but honest oof has eve been, the image of Miss Agnes (I don’t mind tusting you with my secet, Maste Coppefield, fo I have always oveflowed towads you since the fist moment I had the pleasue Chales Dickens ElecBook Classics fDavid Coppefield of beholding you in a pony-shay) has been in my beast fo yeas. Oh, Maste Coppefield, with what a pue affection do I love the gound my Agnes walks on!’ I believe I had a deliious idea of seizing the ed-hot poke out of the fie, and unning him though with it. It went fom me with a shock, like a ball fied fom a ifle: but the image of Agnes, outaged by so much as a thought of this ed-headed animal’s, emained in my mind when I looked at him, sitting all awy as if his mean soul giped his body, and made me giddy. He seemed to swell and gow befoe my eyes; the oom seemed full of the echoes of his voice; and the stange feeling (to which, pehaps, no one is quite a stange) that all this had occued befoe, at some indefinite time, and that I knew what he was going to say next, took possession of me. A timely obsevation of the sense of powe that thee was in his face, did moe to bing back to my emembance the enteaty of Agnes, in its full foce, than any effot I could have made. I asked him, with a bette appeaance of composue than I could have thought possible a minute befoe, whethe he had made his feelings known to Agnes. ‘Oh no, Maste Coppefield!’ he etuned; ‘oh dea, no! Not to anyone but you. You see I am only just emeging fom my lowly station. I est a good deal of hope on he obseving how useful I am to he fathe (fo I tust to be vey useful to him indeed, Maste Coppefield), and how I smooth the way fo him, and keep him staight. She’s so much attached to he fathe, Maste Coppefield (oh, what a lovely thing it is in a daughte!), that I think she may come, on his account, to be kind to me.’ I fathomed the depth of the ascal’s whole scheme, and Chales Dickens ElecBook Classics fDavid Coppefield undestood why he laid it bae. ‘If you’ll have the goodness to keep my secet, Maste Coppefield,’ he pusued, ‘and not, in geneal, to go against me, I shall take it as a paticula favou. You wouldn’t wish to make unpleasantness. I know what a fiendly heat you’ve got; but having only known me on my umble footing (on my umblest I should say, fo I am vey umble still), you might, unbeknown, go against me athe, with my Agnes. I call he mine, you see, Maste Coppefield. Thee’s a song that says, “I’d cowns esign, to call he mine!” I hope to do it, one of these days.’ Dea Agnes! So much too loving and too good fo anyone that I could think of, was it possible that she was eseved to be the wife of such a wetch as this! ‘Thee’s no huy at pesent, you know, Maste Coppefield,’ Uiah poceeded, in his slimy way, as I sat gazing at him, with this thought in my mind. ‘My Agnes is vey young still; and mothe and me will have to wok ou way upwads, and make a good many new aangements, befoe it would be quite convenient. So I shall have time gadually to make he familia with my hopes, as oppotunities offe. Oh, I’m so much obliged to you fo this confidence! Oh, it’s such a elief, you can’t think, to know that you undestand ou situation, and ae cetain (as you wouldn’t wish to make unpleasantness in the family) not to go against me!’ He took the hand which I daed not withhold, and having given it a damp squeeze, efeed to his pale-faced watch. ‘Dea me!’ he said, ‘it’s past one. The moments slip away so, in the confidence of old times, Maste Coppefield, that it’s
