Page 849 - david-copperfield

other room; and, taking my leave of the firm until dinner, I
went upstairs again.
I had hoped to have no other companion than Agnes.
But Mrs. Heep had asked permission to bring herself and
her knitting near the fire, in that room; on pretence of its
having an aspect more favourable for her rheumatics, as the
wind then was, than the drawing-room or dining-parlour.
Though I could almost have consigned her to the mercies of
the wind on the topmost pinnacle of the Cathedral, with-
out remorse, I made a virtue of necessity, and gave her a
friendly salutation.
‘I’m umbly thankful to you, sir,’ said Mrs. Heep, in ac-
knowledgement of my inquiries concerning her health, ‘but
I’m only pretty well. I haven’t much to boast of. If I could see
my Uriah well settled in life, I couldn’t expect much more I
think. How do you think my Ury looking, sir?’
I thought him looking as villainous as ever, and I replied
that I saw no change in him.
‘Oh, don’t you think he’s changed?’ said Mrs. Heep.
‘There I must umbly beg leave to differ from you. Don’t you
see a thinness in him?’
‘Not more than usual,’ I replied.
‘Don’t you though!’ said Mrs. Heep. ‘But you don’t take
notice of him with a mother’s eye!’
His mother’s eye was an evil eye to the rest of the world, I
thought as it met mine, howsoever affectionate to him; and
I believe she and her son were devoted to one another. It
passed me, and went on to Agnes.
‘Don’t YOU see a wasting and a wearing in him, Miss

David Copperfield