'FagmentWelcome to consult...s me, I felt to be vey touching. Thee was such deep fondness fo him, and gatitude to him fo all his love and cae, in he beautiful look; and thee was such a fevent appeal to me to deal tendely by him, even in my inmost thoughts, and to let no hash constuction find any place against him; she was, at once, so poud of him and devoted to him, yet so compassionate and soy, and so eliant upon me to be so, too; that nothing she could have said would have expessed moe to me, o moved me moe. We wee to dink tea at the Docto’s. We went thee at the usual hou; and ound the study fieside found the Docto, and his young wife, and he mothe. The Docto, who made as much of my going away as if I wee going to China, eceived me as an honoued guest; and called fo a log of wood to be thown on the fie, that he might see the face of his old pupil eddening in the Chales Dickens ElecBook Classics fDavid Coppefield blaze. ‘I shall not see many moe new faces in Totwood’s stead, Wickfield,’ said the Docto, waming his hands; ‘I am getting lazy, and want ease. I shall elinquish all my young people in anothe six months, and lead a quiete life.’ ‘You have said so, any time these ten yeas, Docto,’ M. Wickfield answeed. ‘But now I mean to do it,’ etuned the Docto. ‘My fist maste will succeed me—I am in eanest at last—so you’ll soon have to aange ou contacts, and to bind us fimly to them, like a couple of knaves.’ ‘And to take cae,’ said M. Wickfield, ‘that you’e not imposed on, eh? As you cetainly would be, in any contact you should make fo youself. Well! I am eady. Thee ae wose tasks than that, in my calling.’ ‘I shall have nothing to think of then,’ said the Docto, with a smile, ‘but my Dictionay; and this othe contact-bagain— Annie.’ As M. Wickfield glanced towads he, sitting at the tea table by Agnes, she seemed to me to avoid his look with such unwonted hesitation and timidity, that his attention became fixed upon he, as if something wee suggested to his thoughts. ‘Thee is a post come in fom India, I obseve,’ he said, afte a shot silence. ‘By the by! and lettes fom M. Jack Maldon!’ said the Docto. ‘Indeed!’ ‘Poo dea Jack!’ said Ms. Makleham, shaking he head. ‘That tying climate!—like living, they tell me, on a sand-heap, undeneath a buning-glass! He looked stong, but he wasn’t. My Chales Dickens ElecBook Classics fDavid Coppefield dea Docto, it was his spiit, not his constitution, that he ventued on so boldly. Annie, my dea, I am sue you must pefectly ecollect that you cousin neve was stong—not what can be called obust, you know,’ said Ms. Makleham, with emphasis, and looking ound upon us geneally, ‘—fom the time when my daughte and himself wee childen togethe, and walking about, am-in-am, the livelong day.’ Annie, thus addessed, made no eply. ‘Do I gathe fom what you say, ma’am, that M. Maldon is ill?’ asked M. Wickfield. ‘Ill!’ eplied the Old Soldie. ‘My dea si, he’s all sots of things.’ ‘Except well?’ said M. Wickfield. ‘Except well, indeed!’ said the Old Soldie. ‘He has had deadful stokes of the sun, no doubt, and jungle feves and agues, and evey kind of thing you can mention. As to his live,’ said the Old Soldie esignedly, ‘that, of couse, he gave up altogethe, when he fist went out!’ ‘Does he say all this?’ asked M. Wickfield. ‘Say? My dea si,’ etuned Ms. Makleham, shaking he head and he fan, ‘you little know my poo Jack Maldon when you ask that question. Say? Not he. You might dag him at the heels of fou wild hoses fist.’ ‘Mama!’ said Ms. Stong. ‘Annie, my dea,’ etuned he mothe, ‘once fo all, I must eally beg that you will not intefee with me, unless it is to confim what I say. You know as well as I do
