Dr. Strong's
school, and in regard to a home for me, made the following proposal:

"Leave your nephew here for the present. He's a quiet fellow. He won't
disturb me at all. It's a capital house for study. As quiet as a
monastery, and almost as roomy. Leave him here."

My aunt evidently liked the offer, but was delicate of accepting it,
until Mr. Wickfield cried, "Come! I know how you feel, you shall not be
oppressed by the receipt of favors, Miss Trotwood. You may pay for him
if you like."

"On that understanding," said my aunt, "though it doesn't lessen the
real obligation, I shall be very glad to leave him."

"Then come and see my little housekeeper," said Mr. Wickfield.

We accordingly went up a wonderful old staircase, with a balustrade so
broad that we might have gone up that, almost as easily, and into a
shady old drawing-room, lighted by three or four quaint windows which
had old oak seats in them, that seemed to have come of the same trees as
the shining oak floor, and the great beams in the ceiling. It was a
prettily furnished room, with a piano, and some lively furniture in red
and green, and some flowers. It seemed to be all odd nooks and corners;
and in every nook and corner there was some queer little table, or
cupboard, or bookcase, or seat, or something or other, that made me
think there was not such another corner in the room, until I looked at
the next one and found it equal to it if not better. On everything
there was the same air of refinement and cleanliness that marked the
house outside.

Mr. Wickfield tapped at a door in a corner of the panelled wall, and a
girl of about my own age came quickly out and kissed him. On her face, I
saw immediately the placid and sweet expression of a lady whose portrait
I had seen downstairs. It seemed to my imagination as if the portrait
had grown womanly, and the original had remained a child. Although her
face was quite bright and happy, there was a tranquillity about it, and
about her--a quiet, good, calm, spirit--that I never have forgotten;
that I never shall forget.

This was his little housekeeper, his daughter Agnes, Mr. Wickfield said.
When I heard how he said it, and saw how he held her hand, I guessed
what the one motive of his life was.

She had a little basket-trifle hanging at her side with keys in it; and
she looked as staid and discreet a housekeeper as the old house could
have. She listened to her father as he told her about me, with a
ple