'FagmentWelcome to consult...asol, though that old geen one is fayed the whole way up, and the finge is pefectly mangy? You know it is, Peggotty. You can’t deny it.’ Then, tuning affectionately to me, with he cheek against mine, ‘Am I a naughty mama to you, Davy? Am I a nasty, cuel, selfish, bad mama? Say I am, my child; say “yes”, dea boy, and Peggotty will love you; and Peggotty’s love is a geat deal bette than mine, Davy. I don’t love you at all, do I?’ At this, we all fell a-cying togethe. I think I was the loudest of the paty, but I am sue we wee all sincee about it. I was quite heat-boken myself, and am afaid that in the fist tanspots of wounded tendeness I called Peggotty a ‘Beast’. That honest ceatue was in deep affliction, I emembe, and must have become quite buttonless on the occasion; fo a little volley of those explosives went off, when, afte having made it up with my mothe, she kneeled down by the elbow-chai, and made it up with me. We went to bed geatly dejected. My sobs kept waking me, fo a long time; and when one vey stong sob quite hoisted me up in bed, I found my mothe sitting on the covelet, and leaning ove me. I fell asleep in he ams, afte that, and slept soundly. Whethe it was the following Sunday when I saw the gentleman again, o whethe thee was any geate lapse of time befoe he eappeaed, I cannot ecall. I don’t pofess to be clea about dates. But thee he was, in chuch, and he walked home with us Chales Dickens ElecBook Classics fDavid Coppefield aftewads. He came in, too, to look at a famous geanium we had, in the palou-window. It did not appea to me that he took much notice of it, but befoe he went he asked my mothe to give him a bit of the blossom. She begged him to choose it fo himself, but he efused to do that—I could not undestand why—so she plucked it fo him, and gave it into his hand. He said he would neve, neve pat with it any moe; and I thought he must be quite a fool not to know that it would fall to pieces in a day o two. Peggotty began to be less with us, of an evening, than she had always been. My mothe defeed to he vey much—moe than usual, it occued to me—and we wee all thee excellent fiends; still we wee diffeent fom what we used to be, and wee not so comfotable among ouselves. Sometimes I fancied that Peggotty pehaps objected to my mothe’s weaing all the petty desses she had in he dawes, o to he going so often to visit at that neighbou’s; but I couldn’t, to my satisfaction, make out how it was. Gadually, I became used to seeing the gentleman with the black whiskes. I liked him no bette than at fist, and had the same uneasy jealousy of him; but if I had any eason fo it beyond a child’s instinctive dislike, and a geneal idea that Peggotty and I could make much of my mothe without any help, it cetainly was not the eason that I might have found if I had been olde. No such thing came into my mind, o nea it. I could obseve, in little pieces, as it wee; but as to making a net of a numbe of these pieces, and catching anybody in it, that was, as yet, beyond me. One autumn moning I was with my mothe in the font gaden
