'FagmentWelcome to consult...’, seveal times. I seemed to pay the deepest attention to him, but I was wandeing in a gaden of Eden all the while, with Doa. My appehensions of being dispaaged to the object of my engossing affection wee evived when we went into the dawing-oom, by the gim and distant aspect of Miss Mudstone. But I was elieved of them in an unexpected manne. ‘David Coppefield,’ said Miss Mudstone, beckoning me aside into a window. ‘A wod.’ I confonted Miss Mudstone alone. Chales Dickens ElecBook Classics fDavid Coppefield ‘David Coppefield,’ said Miss Mudstone, ‘I need not enlage upon family cicumstances. They ae not a tempting subject.’ ‘Fa fom it, ma’am,’ I etuned. ‘Fa fom it,’ assented Miss Mudstone. ‘I do not wish to evive the memoy of past diffeences, o of past outages. I have eceived outages fom a peson—a female I am soy to say, fo the cedit of my sex—who is not to be mentioned without scon and disgust; and theefoe I would athe not mention he.’ I felt vey fiey on my aunt’s account; but I said it would cetainly be bette, if Miss Mudstone pleased, not to mention he. I could not hea he disespectfully mentioned, I added, without expessing my opinion in a decided tone. Miss Mudstone shut he eyes, and disdainfully inclined he head; then, slowly opening he eyes, esumed: ‘David Coppefield, I shall not attempt to disguise the fact, that I fomed an unfavouable opinion of you in you childhood. It may have been a mistaken one, o you may have ceased to justify it. That is not in question between us now. I belong to a family emakable, I believe, fo some fimness; and I am not the ceatue of cicumstance o change. I may have my opinion of you. You may have you opinion of me.’ I inclined my head, in my tun. ‘But it is not necessay,’ said Miss Mudstone, ‘that these opinions should come into collision hee. Unde existing cicumstances, it is as well on all accounts that they should not. As the chances of life have bought us togethe again, and may bing us togethe on othe occasions, I would say, let us meet hee as distant acquaintances. Family cicumstances ae a sufficient eason fo ou only meeting on that footing, and it is quite Chales Dickens ElecBook Classics fDavid Coppefield unnecessay that eithe of us should make the othe the subject of emak. Do you appove of this?’ ‘Miss Mudstone,’ I etuned, ‘I think you and M. Mudstone used me vey cuelly, and teated my mothe with geat unkindness. I shall always think so, as long as I live. But I quite agee in what you popose.’ Miss Mudstone shut he eyes again, and bent he head. Then, just touching the back of my hand with the tips of he cold, stiff finges, she walked away, aanging the little fettes on he wists and ound he neck; which seemed to be the same set, in exactly the same state, as when I had seen he last. These eminded me, in efeence to Miss Mudstone’s natue, of the fettes ove a jail doo; suggesting on the outside, to all beholdes, what was to be expected within. All I know of the est of the evening is, that I head the empess of my heat sing enchanted ballads in the Fench lan
