tory of my poor mother's about my birth, which it had been one
of my great delights in the old time to hear her tell, and which I knew
by heart. My aunt walked into that story, and walked out of it, a dread
and awful personage; but there was one little trait in her behaviour
which I liked to dwell on, and which gave me some faint shadow of
encouragement. I could not forget how my mother had thought that she
felt her touch her pretty hair with no ungentle hand; and though it
might have been altogether my mother's fancy, and might have had no
foundation whatever in fact, I made a little picture, out of it, of my
terrible aunt relenting towards the girlish beauty that I recollected so
well and loved so much, which softened the whole narrative. It is very
possible that it had been in my mind a long time, and had gradually
engendered my determination.

As I did not even know where Miss Betsey lived, I wrote a long letter
to Peggotty, and asked her, incidentally, if she remembered; pretending
that I had heard of such a lady living at a certain place I named at
random, and had a curiosity to know if it were the same. In the course
of that letter, I told Peggotty that I had a particular occasion for
half a guinea; and that if she could lend me that sum until I could
repay it, I should be very much obliged to her, and would tell her
afterwards what I had wanted it for.

Peggotty's answer soon arrived, and was, as usual, full of affectionate
devotion. She enclosed the half guinea (I was afraid she must have had
a world of trouble to get it out of Mr. Barkis's box), and told me that
Miss Betsey lived near Dover, but whether at Dover itself, at Hythe,
Sandgate, or Folkestone, she could not say. One of our men, however,
informing me on my asking him about these places, that they were all
close together, I deemed this enough for my object, and resolved to set
out at the end of that week.

Being a very honest little creature, and unwilling to disgrace the
memory I was going to leave behind me at Murdstone and Grinby's, I
considered myself bound to remain until Saturday night; and, as I had
been paid a week's wages in advance when I first came there, not to
present myself in the counting-house at the usual hour, to receive my
stipend. For this express reason, I had borrowed the half-guinea, that
I might not be without a fund for my travelling-expenses. Accordingly,
when the Saturday night came, and we were all waiting in the warehous