Page 239 - david-copperfield

remark here that I hardly ever, in all my experience of the
family, saw both the twins detached from Mrs. Micawber
at the same time. One of them was always taking refresh-
ment.
There were two other children; Master Micawber, aged
about four, and Miss Micawber, aged about three. These,
and a dark-complexioned young woman, with a habit of
snorting, who was servant to the family, and informed me,
before half an hour had expired, that she was ‘a Orfling’,
and came from St. Luke’s workhouse, in the neighbourhood,
completed the establishment. My room was at the top of the
house, at the back: a close chamber; stencilled all over with
an ornament which my young imagination represented as a
blue muffin; and very scantily furnished.
‘I never thought,’ said Mrs. Micawber, when she came up,
twin and all, to show me the apartment, and sat down to
take breath, ‘before I was married, when I lived with papa
and mama, that I should ever find it necessary to take a
lodger. But Mr. Micawber being in difficulties, all consider-
ations of private feeling must give way.’
I said: ‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘Mr. Micawber’s difficulties are almost overwhelming just
at present,’ said Mrs. Micawber; ‘and whether it is possible
to bring him through them, I don’t know. When I lived at
home with papa and mama, I really should have hardly un-
derstood what the word meant, in the sense in which I now
employ it, but experientia does it, - as papa used to say.’
I cannot satisfy myself whether she told me that Mr. Mi-
cawber had been an officer in the Marines, or whether I

David Copperfield