Page 810 - david-copperfield

It was still on her mind when I bade her adieu; and she
said to me, in her pretty coaxing way - as if I were a doll, I
used to think:
‘Now don’t get up at five o’clock, you naughty boy. It’s so
nonsensical!’
‘My love,’ said I, ‘I have work to do.’
‘But don’t do it!’ returned Dora. ‘Why should you?’
It was impossible to say to that sweet little surprised face,
otherwise than lightly and playfully, that we must work to
live.
‘Oh! How ridiculous!’ cried Dora.
‘How shall we live without, Dora?’ said I.
‘How? Any how!’ said Dora.
She seemed to think she had quite settled the question,
and gave me such a triumphant little kiss, direct from her
innocent heart, that I would hardly have put her out of con-
ceit with her answer, for a fortune.
Well! I loved her, and I went on loving her, most absorb-
ingly, entirely, and completely. But going on, too, working
pretty hard, and busily keeping red-hot all the irons I now
had in the fire, I would sit sometimes of a night, opposite
my aunt, thinking how I had frightened Dora that time, and
how I could best make my way with a guitar-case through
the forest of difficulty, until I used to fancy that my head
was turning quite grey.

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