. I never said six words to her myself, I ain't
a-goin' to tell her so.'

'Would you like me to do it, Mr. Barkis?' said I, doubtfully. 'You might
tell her, if you would,' said Mr. Barkis, with another slow look at me,
'that Barkis was a-waitin' for a answer. Says you--what name is it?'

'Her name?'

'Ah!' said Mr. Barkis, with a nod of his head.

'Peggotty.'

'Chrisen name? Or nat'ral name?' said Mr. Barkis.

'Oh, it's not her Christian name. Her Christian name is Clara.'

'Is it though?' said Mr. Barkis.

He seemed to find an immense fund of reflection in this circumstance,
and sat pondering and inwardly whistling for some time.

'Well!' he resumed at length. 'Says you, "Peggotty! Barkis is waitin'
for a answer." Says she, perhaps, "Answer to what?" Says you, "To what I
told you." "What is that?" says she. "Barkis is willin'," says you.'

This extremely artful suggestion Mr. Barkis accompanied with a nudge
of his elbow that gave me quite a stitch in my side. After that, he
slouched over his horse in his usual manner; and made no other reference
to the subject except, half an hour afterwards, taking a piece of chalk
from his pocket, and writing up, inside the tilt of the cart, 'Clara
Peggotty'--apparently as a private memorandum.

Ah, what a strange feeling it was to be going home when it was not home,
and to find that every object I looked at, reminded me of the happy old
home, which was like a dream I could never dream again! The days when my
mother and I and Peggotty were all in all to one another, and there was
no one to come between us, rose up before me so sorrowfully on the road,
that I am not sure I was glad to be there--not sure but that I would
rather have remained away, and forgotten it in Steerforth's company. But
there I was; and soon I was at our house, where the bare old elm-trees
wrung their many hands in the bleak wintry air, and shreds of the old
rooks'-nests drifted away upon the wind.

The carrier put my box down at the garden-gate, and left me. I walked
along the path towards the house, glancing at the windows, and fearing
at every step to see Mr. Murdstone or Miss Murdstone lowering out of
one of them. No face appeared, however; and being come to the house, and
knowing how to open the door, before dark, without knocking, I went in
with a quiet, timid step.

God knows how infantine the memory may have been, that was awakened
within me by the sound of my mother's voice in the old parl