Page 206 - david-copperfield
P. 206

dear old Peggotty, there. You won’t be quite at the other end
       of the world, will you?’
         ‘Contrary ways, please God!’ cried Peggotty, with great
       animation. ‘As long as you are here, my pet, I shall come
       over every week of my life to see you. One day, every week
       of my life!’
          I felt a great weight taken off my mind by this promise:
       but even this was not all, for Peggotty went on to say:
         ‘I’m a-going, Davy, you see, to my brother’s, first, for an-
       other fortnight’s visit - just till I have had time to look about
       me, and get to be something like myself again. Now, I have
       been thinking that perhaps, as they don’t want you here at
       present, you might be let to go along with me.’
          If anything, short of being in a different relation to ev-
       ery one about me, Peggotty excepted, could have given me
       a  sense  of  pleasure  at  that  time,  it  would  have  been  this
       project of all others. The idea of being again surrounded
       by those honest faces, shining welcome on me; of renewing
       the peacefulness of the sweet Sunday morning, when the
       bells were ringing, the stones dropping in the water, and
       the shadowy ships breaking through the mist; of roaming
       up and down with little Em’ly, telling her my troubles, and
       finding charms against them in the shells and pebbles on
       the beach; made a calm in my heart. It was ruffled next mo-
       ment, to be sure, by a doubt of Miss Murdstone’s giving her
       consent; but even that was set at rest soon, for she came
       out to take an evening grope in the store-closet while we
       were yet in conversation, and Peggotty, with a boldness that
       amazed me, broached the topic on the spot.

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