running after me to ask would I step back to a
lady in a carriage who wished to speak to me. It was a little pony
carriage, which the lady was driving; and the lady and I looked sadly
enough on one another. 'I am greatly changed, I know; but I thought you
would like to shake hands with Estella too, Pip. Lift up that pretty
child and let me kiss it!' (She supposed the child, I think, to be my
child.) I was very glad afterwards to have had the interview; for, in
her face and in her voice, and in her touch, she gave me the assurance,
that suffering had been stronger than Miss Havisham's teaching, and had
given her a heart to understand what my heart used to be."

[271] On this reproach, from a Jewish lady whom he esteemed, he had
written two years before. "Fagin, in _Oliver Twist_, is a Jew, because
it unfortunately was true, of the time to which that story refers, that
that class of criminal almost invariably _was_ a Jew. But surely no
sensible man or woman of your persuasion can fail to observe--firstly,
that all the rest of the wicked _dramatis personae_ are Christians; and,
secondly, that he is called 'The Jew,' not because of his religion, but
because of his race."

[272] Mr. Marcus Stone had, upon the separate issue of the _Tale of Two
Cities_, taken the place of Mr. Hablot Browne as his illustrator. _Hard
Times_ and the first edition of _Great Expectations_ were not
illustrated; but when Pip's story appeared in one volume, Mr. Stone
contributed designs for it.

[273] He thus spoke of it in his "Postscript in lieu of Preface" (dated
2nd of September 1865), which accompanied the last number of the story
under notice. "On Friday the ninth of June in the present year, Mr. and
Mrs. Boffin (in their manuscript dress of receiving Mr. and Mrs. Lammle
at breakfast) were on the South-Eastern Railway with me, in a terribly
destructive accident. When I had done what I could to help others, I
climbed back into my carriage--nearly turned over a viaduct, and caught
aslant upon the turn--to extricate the worthy couple. They were much
soiled, but otherwise unhurt. The same happy result attended Miss Bella
Wilfer on her wedding-day, and Mr. Riderhood inspecting Bradley
Headstone's red neckerchief as he lay asleep. I remember with devout
thankfulness that I can never be much nearer parting company with my
readers for ever, than I was then, until there shall be written against
my life the two words with which I have this day closed t