er leaving off pinching whatever
they laid hold of." Little Emily appeared as a beautiful young woman,
and no longer as the prattling lassie who, years before had confided
to her playfellow, David, how, if ever she were a lady, she would give
uncle Dan, meaning Mr. Peggotty, "a sky-blue coat, with diamond buttons,
nankeen trousers, a red velvet waistcoat, a cocked hat, a large gold
watch, a silver pipe, and a box of money." Mrs. Gummidge, as became a
faithful widow, was still fretting after the Old 'Un. Ham, something of
Mr. Peggotty's own build, as the latter described him, "a good deal o'
the sou-wester in him, wery salt, but on the whole, a honest sort of
a chap, too, with his 'art in the right place," had just made good his
betrothal to the little creature he had seen grow up there before him,
"like a flower," when, at the very opening of the Reading, into the
old Yarmouth boat, walked "Mas'r Davy" and his friend Steerforth. Mr.
Peggotty's explanation to his unexpected but heartily welcomed visitors
as to how the engagement between Ham and Emily, had but just then been
brought about, opened up before the audience in a few words the whole
scheme of the tragic little dramatic tale about to be revealed to them
through a series of vivid impersonations.

The idiomatic sentences of the bluff fisherman, as in their racy
vernacular they were blithely given utterance to by the manly voice of
the Reader, seemed to supply a fitting introduction to the drama, as
though from the lips of a Yarmouth Chorus. Scarcely had the social
carouse there in the old boat, on that memorable evening of Steerforth's
introduction, been recounted, when the whole drift of the story was
clearly foreshadowed in the brief talk which immediately took place
between him and David as they walked townwards across the sands towards
their hotel. "Daisy,--for though that's not the name your godfathers
and godmothers gave you, you're such a fresh fellow, that it's the name
I best like to call you by--and I wish, I wish, I wish you could give it
to me!" That of itself had its-significance. But still more significant
was David's mention of his looking in at Steerforth's bed-room on the
following morning, before himself going away alone, and of his there
finding the handsome scapegrace fast asleep, "lying easily, with his
head upon his-arm," as he had often seen him lie in the old school
dormitory. "Thus in this silent hour I left him," with mournful
tenderness,