Page 508 - david-copperfield

often cross to you, and changeable with you, when I ought
to be far different. You are never so to me. Why am I ever so
to you, when I should think of nothing but how to be grate-
ful, and to make you happy!’
‘You always make me so,’ said Ham, ‘my dear! I am happy
in the sight of you. I am happy, all day long, in the thoughts
of you.’
‘Ah! that’s not enough!’ she cried. ‘That is because you
are good; not because I am! Oh, my dear, it might have been
a better fortune for you, if you had been fond of someone
else - of someone steadier and much worthier than me, who
was all bound up in you, and never vain and changeable
like me!’
‘Poor little tender-heart,’ said Ham, in a low voice. ‘Mar-
tha has overset her, altogether.’
‘Please, aunt,’ sobbed Em’ly, ‘come here, and let me lay my
head upon you. Oh, I am very miserable tonight, aunt! Oh, I
am not as good a girl as I ought to be. I am not, I know!’
Peggotty had hastened to the chair before the fire. Em’ly,
with her arms around her neck, kneeled by her, looking up
most earnestly into her face.
‘Oh, pray, aunt, try to help me! Ham, dear, try to help
me! Mr. David, for the sake of old times, do, please, try to
help me! I want to be a better girl than I am. I want to feel
a hundred times more thankful than I do. I want to feel
more, what a blessed thing it is to be the wife of a good man,
and to lead a peaceful life. Oh me, oh me! Oh my heart, my
heart!’
She dropped her face on my old nurse’s breast, and, ceas-

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