tle Copperfield!"

Then ensued a violent shaking of hands, and a volley of questions on both
sides. He was studying at Oxford, but was on his way to visit his mother,
who lived just out of London. He was as handsome, and fascinating, and
gay, as ever, in fact quite bewilderingly so to me; and all those things
which I enjoyed, he pronounced dreadful bores, quite like a man of the
world. However, we got on famously, and when he invited me to go with him
to his home at Highgate, I accepted with pleasure, and spent a delightful
week there in the genteel, old-fashioned, quiet home. At the end of the
week, Steerforth decided to go with me to Yarmouth, so we travelled on
together to the inn there, and took rooms.

As early as possible the next day, I visited Peggotty. She did not
recognise me after our seven years' separation, but when at last it dawned
on her who I was, she cried, "My darling boy!" and we both burst into
tears, and were locked in one another's arms as though I were a child
again.

That evening Steerforth and I went to see Mr. Peggotty and my other
friends in the boat, and we were so warmly received that it was nearly
midnight when we took our leave. We stayed in Yarmouth for more than a
fortnight, and I made many pilgrimages to the dear haunts of my childhood,
particularly to that place where my mother and father lay, and mingled
with my sad thoughts were brighter ones, about my future--and of how in it
I was to become a man of whom they might have been proud.

At the end of the fortnight came a letter from Aunt Betsey, saying that
she had taken lodgings for a week in London, and that if I would join her,
we could discuss her latest plan for me, which was that I become a proctor
in Doctors' Commons.

I mentioned the plan to Steerforth, and he advised me to take kindly to
it, and by the time that I reached London I had made up my mind to do so.
My aunt was greatly pleased when I told her this, whereupon I proceeded to
add that my only objection to the plan lay in the great expense it would
be to article me,--a thousand pounds at least. I spoke of her past
liberality to me, and asked her whether I had not better choose some work
which required less expensive preliminaries.

For a time my aunt was deep in thought. Then she replied:

"Trot, my child, if I have any object in life, it is to provide for your
being a good, sensible, and happy man. I am bent upon it. It's in vain,
Trot, to recall the past, unle