observing her, and hung down her head, and
her face was covered with blushes. Glancing up presently through her
stray curls, and seeing that we were all looking at her still (I am sure
I, for one, could have looked at her for hours), she ran away, and kept
away till it was nearly bedtime.

I lay down in the old little bed in the stern of the boat, and the wind
came moaning on across the flat as it had done before. But I could not
help fancying, now that it moaned, of those who were gone; and instead
of thinking that the sea might rise in the night and float the boat
away, I thought of the sea that had risen, since I last heard those
sounds, and drowned my happy home, I recollect, as the wind and water
began to sound fainter in my ears, putting a short clause into my
prayers, petitioning that I might grow up to marry little Em'ly, and so
dropping lovingly asleep.

During this visit Peggotty was married to Mr. Barkis, and had a nice
little house of her own, and I spent the night before I was to return
home in a little room in the roof.

"Young or old, Davy dear, so long as I have this house over my head,"
said Peggotty, "you shall find it as if I expected you here directly
every minute. I shall keep it as I used to keep your old little room, my
darling, and if you was to go to China, you might think of its being
kept just the same all the time you were away."

I felt how good and true a friend she was, and thanked her as well as I
could, for they had brought me to the gate of my home, and Peggotty had
me clasped in her arms.

I was poor and lonely at home, with no one near to speak a loving word,
or a face to look on with love or liking, only the two persons who had
broken my mother's heart. How utterly wretched and forlorn I felt! I
found I was not to go back to school any more, and wandered about sad
and solitary, neglected and uncared for. Peggotty's weekly visits were
my only comfort. I longed to go to school, however hard an one, to be
taught something anyhow, anywhere--but no one took any pains with me,
and I had no friends near who could help me.

At last one day, after some weary months had passed, Mr. Murdstone told
me I was to go to London and earn my own living. There was a place for
me at Murdstone & Grinby's, a firm in the wine trade. My lodging and
clothes would be provided for me by my step-father, and I would earn
enough for my food and pocket money. The next day, I was sent up to
London with the ma