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must - you really must’ (I was resolved not to give this up) -
‘accustom yourself to look after Mary Anne. Likewise to act
a little for yourself, and me.’
‘I wonder, I do, at your making such ungrateful speech-
es,’ sobbed Dora. ‘When you know that the other day, when
you said you would like a little bit of fish, I went out myself,
miles and miles, and ordered it, to surprise you.’
‘And it was very kind of you, my own darling,’ said I. ‘I
felt it so much that I wouldn’t on any account have even
mentioned that you bought a Salmon - which was too much
for two. Or that it cost one pound six - which was more than
we can afford.’
‘You enjoyed it very much,’ sobbed Dora. ‘And you said
I was a Mouse.’
‘And I’ll say so again, my love,’ I returned, ‘a thousand
times!’
But I had wounded Dora’s soft little heart, and she was
not to be comforted. She was so pathetic in her sobbing and
bewailing, that I felt as if I had said I don’t know what to
hurt her. I was obliged to hurry away; I was kept out late;
and I felt all night such pangs of remorse as made me mis-
erable. I had the conscience of an assassin, and was haunted
by a vague sense of enormous wickedness.
It was two or three hours past midnight when I got home.
I found my aunt, in our house, sitting up for me.
‘Is anything the matter, aunt?’ said I, alarmed.
‘Nothing, Trot,’ she replied. ‘Sit down, sit down. Lit-
tle Blossom has been rather out of spirits, and I have been
keeping her company. That’s all.’

David Copperfield