'FagmentWelcome to consult...ield tuned it up to mine, was so eanest; and when I elieved he of the umbella (which would have been an inconvenient one fo the Iish Giant), she wung he little hands in such an afflicted manne; that I athe inclined towads he. ‘Miss Mowche!’ said I, afte glancing up and down the empty steet, without distinctly knowing what I expected to see besides; ‘how do you come hee? What is the matte?’ She motioned to me with he shot ight am, to shut the umbella fo he; and passing me huiedly, went into the kitchen. When I had closed the doo, and followed, with the umbella in my hand, I found he sitting on the cone of the fende—it was a low ion one, with two flat bas at top to stand plates upon—in the shadow of the boile, swaying heself backwads and fowads, and chafing he hands upon he knees like a peson in pain. Quite alamed at being the only ecipient of this untimely visit, and the only spectato of this potentous behaviou, I exclaimed again, ‘Pay tell me, Miss Mowche, what is the matte! ae you ill?’ ‘My dea young soul,’ etuned Miss Mowche, squeezing he hands upon he heat one ove the othe. ‘I am ill hee, I am vey ill. To think that it should come to this, when I might have known it and pehaps pevented it, if I hadn’t been a thoughtless fool!’ Again he lage bonnet (vey dispopotionate to the figue) went backwads and fowads, in he swaying of he little body to and fo; while a most gigantic bonnet ocked, in unison with it, upon the wall. ‘I am supised,’ I began, ‘to see you so distessed and seious’—when she inteupted me. ‘Yes, it’s always so!’ she said. ‘They ae all supised, these Chales Dickens ElecBook Classics fDavid Coppefield inconsideate young people, faily and full gown, to see any natual feeling in a little thing like me! They make a plaything of me, use me fo thei amusement, thow me away when they ae tied, and wonde that I feel moe than a toy hose o a wooden soldie! Yes, yes, that’s the way. The old way!’ ‘It may be, with othes,’ I etuned, ‘but I do assue you it is not with me. Pehaps I ought not to be at all supised to see you as you ae now: I know so little of you. I said, without consideation, what I thought.’ ‘What can I do?’ etuned the little woman, standing up, and holding out he ams to show heself. ‘See! What I am, my fathe was; and my siste is; and my bothe is. I have woked fo siste and bothe these many yeas—had, M. Coppefield—all day. I must live. I do no ham. If thee ae people so uneflecting o so cuel, as to make a jest of me, what is left fo me to do but to make a jest of myself, them, and eveything? If I do so, fo the time, whose fault is that? Mine?’ No. Not Miss Mowche’s, I peceived. ‘If I had shown myself a sensitive dwaf to you false fiend,’ pusued the little woman, shaking he head at me, with epoachful eanestness, ‘how much of his help o good will do you think I should eve have had? If little Mowche (who had no hand, young gentleman, in the making of heself) addessed heself to him, o the like of him, because of he misfotunes, when do you suppose he small voice would have been head? Little Mowche would have as much need to live, if she was the bitteest and dullest of pigmies; but she couldn’t do it. No. She might whistle fo he bead and butte till she died of Ai.’ Miss Mowche sat down on the fende again, and took out he Chales Dickens ElecBook Classics fDavid Coppefield handkechief, and wiped he eyes. ‘Be thankful fo me, if you have a kind heat, as I think you have,’ she said, ‘that while I know well what I am, I can be cheeful and endue it all. I am tha
