eans of meeting
our expenses, kept down to the utmost farthing, are obtained from him
with great difficulty, and even under fearful threats that he will
Settle himself (the exact expression); and he inexorably refuses to give
any explanation whatever of this distracting policy.

'This is hard to bear. This is heart-breaking. If you will advise me,
knowing my feeble powers such as they are, how you think it will be best
to exert them in a dilemma so unwonted, you will add another friendly
obligation to the many you have already rendered me. With loves from the
children, and a smile from the happily-unconscious stranger, I remain,
dear Mr. Copperfield,

Your afflicted,

'EMMA MICAWBER.'

I did not feel justified in giving a wife of Mrs. Micawber's experience
any other recommendation, than that she should try to reclaim Mr.
Micawber by patience and kindness (as I knew she would in any case); but
the letter set me thinking about him very much.

CHAPTER 43. ANOTHER RETROSPECT

Once again, let me pause upon a memorable period of my life. Let me
stand aside, to see the phantoms of those days go by me, accompanying
the shadow of myself, in dim procession.

Weeks, months, seasons, pass along. They seem little more than a summer
day and a winter evening. Now, the Common where I walk with Dora is all
in bloom, a field of bright gold; and now the unseen heather lies in
mounds and bunches underneath a covering of snow. In a breath, the river
that flows through our Sunday walks is sparkling in the summer sun, is
ruffled by the winter wind, or thickened with drifting heaps of ice.
Faster than ever river ran towards the sea, it flashes, darkens, and
rolls away.

Not a thread changes, in the house of the two little bird-like ladies.
The clock ticks over the fireplace, the weather-glass hangs in the hall.
Neither clock nor weather-glass is ever right; but we believe in both,
devoutly.

I have come legally to man's estate. I have attained the dignity of
twenty-one. But this is a sort of dignity that may be thrust upon one.
Let me think what I have achieved.

I have tamed that savage stenographic mystery. I make a respectable
income by it. I am in high repute for my accomplishment in all
pertaining to the art, and am joined with eleven others in reporting
the debates in Parliament for a Morning Newspaper. Night after night, I
record predictions that never