prompt:
Chapter: I must have been married, if I may trust to my imperfect memory for
dates, about a year or so, when one evening, as I was returning from a
solitary walk, thinking of the book I was then writing--for my success
had steadily increased with my steady application, and I was engaged at
that time upon my first work of fiction--I came past Mrs. Steerforth's
house. I had often passed it before, during my residence in that
neighbourhood, though never when I could choose another road. Howbeit,
it did sometimes happen that it was not easy to find another, without
making a long circuit; and so I had passed that way, upon the whole,
pretty often.

I had never done more than glance at the house, as I went by with a
quickened step. It had been uniformly gloomy and dull. None of the best
rooms abutted on the road; and the narrow, heavily-framed old-fashioned
windows, never cheerful under any circumstances, looked very dismal,
close shut, and with their blinds always drawn down. There was a covered
way across a little paved court, to an entrance that was never used; and
there was one round staircase window, at odds with all the rest, and the
only one unshaded by a blind, which had the same unoccupied blank look.
I do not remember that I ever saw a light in all the house. If I had
been a casual passer-by, I should have probably supposed that some
childless person lay dead in it. If I had happily possessed no knowledge
of the place, and had seen it often in that changeless state, I should
have pleased my fancy with many ingenious speculations, I dare say.

As it was, I thought as little of it as I might. But my mind could not
go by it and leave it, as my body did; and it usually awakened a long
train of meditations. Coming before me, on this particular evening that
I mention, mingled with the childish recollections and later fancies,
the ghosts of half-formed hopes, the broken shadows of disappointments
dimly seen and understood, the blending of experience and imagination,
incidental to the occupation with which my thoughts had been busy, it
was more than commonly suggestive. I fell into a brown study as I walked
on, and a voice at my side made me start.

It was a woman's voice, too. I was not long in recollecting Mrs.
Steerforth's little parlour-maid, who had formerly worn blue ribbons in
her cap. She had taken them out now, to adapt herself, I suppose, to
the altered character of the house; and wore but one or two disconsolate
bows of sober brown.

'If you please, sir, would you have the goodness to walk in, and speak
to Miss Dartle?'

'Has Miss Dartle sent you for me?' I inquired.

'Not tonight, sir, but it's just the same. Miss Dartle saw you pass a
night or two ago; and I was to sit at work on the staircase, and when I
saw you pass again, to ask you to step in and speak to her.'

I turned back, and inquired of my conductor, as we went along, how Mrs.
Steerforth was. She said her lady was but poorly, and kept her own room
a good deal.

When we arrived at the house, I was directed to Miss Dartle in the
garden, and left to make my presence known to her myself. She was
sitting on a seat at one end of a kind of terrace, overlooking the great
city. It was a sombre evening, with a lurid light in the sky; and as
I saw the prospect scowling in the distance, with here and there some
larger object starting up into the sullen glare, I fancied it was no
inapt companion to the memory of this fierce woman.

She saw me as I advanced, and rose for a moment to receive me. I thought
her, then, still more colourless and thin than when I had seen her last;
the flashing eyes still brighter, and the scar still plainer.

Our meeting was not cordial. We had parted angrily on the last occasion;
and there was an air of disdain about her, which she took no pains to
conceal.

'I am told you wish to speak to me, Miss Dartle,' said I, standing near
her, with my hand upon the back of the seat, and declining her gesture
of invitation to sit down.

'If you please,' said she. 'Pray has this girl been found?'

'No.'

'And yet she has run away!'

I saw her thin lips working while she looked at me, as if they were
eager to load her with reproaches.

'Run away?' I repeated.

'Yes! From him,' she said, with a laugh. 'If she is not found, perhaps
she never will be found. She may be dead!'

The vaunting cruelty with which she met my glance, I never saw expressed
in any other face that ever I have seen.

'To wish her dead,' said I, 'may be the kindest wish that one of her own
sex could bestow upon her. I am glad that time has softened you so much,
Miss Dartle.'

She condescended to make no reply, but, turning on me with another
scornful laugh, said:

'The friends of this excellent and much-injured young lady are friends
of yours. You are their champion, and assert their rights. Do you wish
to know what is known of her?'

'Yes,' said I.

She rose with an ill-favoured smile, and taking a few steps towards
a wall of holly that was near at hand, dividing the lawn from a
kitchen-garden, said, in a louder voice, 'Come here!'--as if she were
calling to some unclean beast.

'You will restrain any demonstrative championship or vengeance in this
place, of course, Mr. Copperfield?' said she, looking over her shoulder
at me with the same expression.

I inclined my head, without knowing what she meant; and she said, 'Come
here!' again; and returned, followed by the respectable Mr. Littimer,
who, with undiminished respectability, made me a bow, and took up his
position behind her. The air of wicked grace: of triumph, in which,
strange to say, there was yet something feminine and alluring: with
which she reclined upon the seat between us, and looked at me, was
worthy of a cruel Princess in a Legend.

'Now,' said she, imperiously, without glancing at him, and touching
the old wound as it throbbed: perhaps, in this instance, with pleasure
rather than pain. 'Tell Mr. Copperfield about the flight.'

'Mr. James and myself, ma'am--'

'Don't address yourself to me!' she interrupted with a frown.

'Mr. James and myself, sir--'

'Nor to me, if you please,' said I.

Mr. Littimer, without being at all discomposed, signified by a slight
obeisance, that anything that was most agreeable to us was most
agreeable to him; and began again.

'Mr. James and myself have been abroad with the young woman, ever
since she left Yarmouth under Mr. James's protection. We have been in a
variety of places, and seen a deal of foreign country. We have been in
France, Switzerland, Italy, in fact, almost all parts.'

He looked at the back of the seat, as if he were addressing himself to
that; and softly played upon it with his hands, as if he were striking
chords upon a dumb piano.

'Mr. James took quite uncommonly to the young woman; and was more
settled, for a length of time, than I have known him to be since I have
been in his service. The young woman was very improvable, and spoke the
languages; and wouldn't have been known for the same country-person. I
noticed that she was much admired wherever we went.'

Miss Dartle put her hand upon her side. I saw him steal a glance at her,
and slightly smile to himself.

'Very much admired, indeed, the young woman was. What with her dress;
what with the air and sun; what with being made so much of; what with
this, that, and the other; her merits really attracted general notice.'

He made a short pause. Her eyes wandered restlessly over the distant
prospect, and she bit her nether lip to stop that busy mouth.

Taking his hands from the seat, and placing one of them within the
other, as he settled himself on one leg, Mr. Littimer proceeded, with
his eyes cast down, and his respectable head a little advanced, and a
little on one side:

'The young woman went on in this manner for some time, being
occasionally low in her spirits, until I think she began to weary Mr.
James by giving way to her low spirits and tempers of that kind; and
things were not so comfortable. Mr. James he began to be restless again.
The more restless he got, the worse she got; and I must say, for myself,
that I had a very difficult time of it indeed between the two. Still
matters were patched up here, and made good there, over and over again;
and altogether lasted, I am sure, for a longer time than anybody could
have expected.'

Recalling her eyes from the distance, she looked at me again now, with
her former air. Mr. Littimer, clearing his throat behind his hand with a
respectable short cough, changed legs, and went on:

'At last, when there had been, upon the whole, a good many words and
reproaches, Mr. James he set off one morning, from the neighbourhood of
Naples, where we had a villa (the young woman being very partial to
the sea), and, under pretence of coming back in a day or so, left it in
charge with me to break it out, that, for the general happiness of all
concerned, he was'--here an interruption of the short cough--'gone. But
Mr. James, I must say, certainly did behave extremely honourable; for
he proposed that the young woman should marry a very respectable person,
who was fully prepared to overlook the past, and who was, at least, as
good as anybody the young woman could have aspired to in a regular way:
her connexions being very common.'

He changed legs again, and wetted his lips. I was convinced that the
scoundrel spoke of himself, and I saw my conviction reflected in Miss
Dartle's face.

'This I also had it in charge to communicate. I was willing to do
anything to relieve Mr. James from his difficulty, and to restore
harmony between himself and an affectionate parent, who has undergone
so much on his account. Therefore I undertook the commission. The
young woman's violence when she came to, after I broke the fact of his
departure, was beyond all expectations. She was quite mad, and had to
be held by force; or, if she couldn't have got to a knife, or got to the
sea, she'd have beaten her head against the marble floor.'

Miss Dartle, leaning back upon the seat, with a light of exultation in
her face, seemed almost to caress the sounds this fellow had uttered.

'But when I came to the second part of what had been entrusted to me,'
said Mr. Littimer, rubbing his hands uneasily, 'which anybody might
have supposed would have been, at all events, appreciated as a kind
intention, then the young woman came out in her true colours. A more
outrageous person I never did see. Her conduct was surprisingly bad. She
had no more gratitude, no more feeling, no more patience, no more reason
in her, than a stock or a stone. If I hadn't been upon my guard, I am
convinced she would have had my blood.'

'I think the better of her for it,' said I, indignantly.

Mr. Littimer bent his head, as much as to say, 'Indeed, sir? But you're
young!' and resumed his narrative.

'It was necessary, in short, for a time, to take away everything nigh
her, that she could do herself, or anybody else, an injury with, and
to shut her up close. Notwithstanding which, she got out in the night;
forced the lattice of a window, that I had nailed up myself; dropped on
a vine that was trailed below; and never has been seen or heard of, to
my knowledge, since.'

'She is dead, perhaps,' said Miss Dartle, with a smile, as if she could
have spurned the body of the ruined girl.

'She may have drowned herself, miss,' returned Mr. Littimer, catching at
an excuse for addressing himself to somebody. 'It's very possible. Or,
she may have had assistance from the boatmen, and the boatmen's wives
and children. Being given to low company, she was very much in the
habit of talking to them on the beach, Miss Dartle, and sitting by their
boats. I have known her do it, when Mr. James has been away, whole days.
Mr. James was far from pleased to find out, once, that she had told the
children she was a boatman's daughter, and that in her own country, long
ago, she had roamed about the beach, like them.'

Oh, Emily! Unhappy beauty! What a picture rose before me of her sitting
on the far-off shore, among the children like herself when she was
innocent, listening to little voices such as might have called her
Mother had she been a poor man's wife; and to the great voice of the
sea, with its eternal 'Never more!'

'When it was clear that nothing could be done, Miss Dartle--'

'Did I tell you not to speak to me?' she said, with stern contempt.

'You spoke to me, miss,' he replied. 'I beg your pardon. But it is my
service to obey.'

'Do your service,' she returned. 'Finish your story, and go!'

'When it was clear,' he said, with infinite respectability and an
obedient bow, 'that she was not to be found, I went to Mr. James, at the
place where it had been agreed that I should write to him, and informed
him of what had occurred. Words passed between us in consequence, and
I felt it due to my character to leave him. I could bear, and I have
borne, a great deal from Mr. James; but he insulted me too far. He hurt
me. Knowing the unfortunate difference between himself and his mother,
and what her anxiety of mind was likely to be, I took the liberty of
coming home to England, and relating--'

'For money which I paid him,' said Miss Dartle to me.

'Just so, ma'am--and relating what I knew. I am not aware,' said Mr.
Littimer, after a moment's reflection, 'that there is anything else.
I am at present out of employment, and should be happy to meet with a
respectable situation.'

Miss Dartle glanced at me, as though she would inquire if there were
anything that I desired to ask. As there was something which had
occurred to my mind, I said in reply:

'I could wish to know from this--creature,' I could not bring myself
to utter any more conciliatory word, 'whether they intercepted a letter
that was written to her from home, or whether he supposes that she
received it.'

He remained calm and silent, with his eyes fixed on the ground, and the
tip of every finger of his right hand delicately poised against the tip
of every finger of his left.

Miss Dartle turned her head disdainfully towards him.

'I beg your pardon, miss,' he said, awakening from his abstraction,
'but, however submissive to you, I have my position, though a servant.
Mr. Copperfield and you, miss, are different people. If Mr. Copperfield
wishes to know anything from me, I take the liberty of reminding Mr.
Copperfield that he can put a question to me. I have a character to
maintain.'

After a momentary struggle with myself, I turned my eyes upon him, and
said, 'You have heard my question. Consider it addressed to yourself, if
you choose. What answer do you make?'

'Sir,' he rejoined, with an occasional separation and reunion of those
delicate tips, 'my answer must be qualified; because, to betray Mr.
James's confidence to his mother, and to betray it to you, are two
different actions. It is not probable, I consider, that Mr. James would
encourage the receipt of letters likely to increase low spirits and
unpleasantness; but further than that, sir, I should wish to avoid
going.'

'Is that all?' inquired Miss Dartle of me.

I indicated that I had nothing more to say. 'Except,' I added, as I
saw him moving off, 'that I understand this fellow's part in the wicked
story, and that, as I shall make it known to the honest man who has been
her father from her childhood, I would recommend him to avoid going too
much into public.'

He had stopped the moment I began, and had listened with his usual
repose of manner.

'Thank you, sir. But you'll excuse me if I say, sir, that there are
neither slaves nor slave-drivers in this country, and that people are
not allowed to take the law into their own hands. If they do, it is
more to their own peril, I believe, than to other people's. Consequently
speaking, I am not at all afraid of going wherever I may wish, sir.'

With that, he made a polite bow; and, with another to Miss Dartle, went
away through the arch in the wall of holly by which he had come. Miss
Dartle and I regarded each other for a little while in silence; her
manner being exactly what it was, when she had produced the man.

'He says besides,' she observed, with a slow curling of her lip, 'that
his master, as he hears, is coasting Spain; and this done, is away
to gratify his seafaring tastes till he is weary. But this is of no
interest to you. Between these two proud persons, mother and son, there
is a wider breach than before, and little hope of its healing, for they
are one at heart, and time makes each more obstinate and imperious.
Neither is this of any interest to you; but it introduces what I wish to
say. This devil whom you make an angel of. I mean this low girl whom he
picked out of the tide-mud,' with her black eyes full upon me, and her
passionate finger up, 'may be alive,--for I believe some common things
are hard to die. If she is, you will desire to have a pearl of such
price found and taken care of. We desire that, too; that he may not
by any chance be made her prey again. So far, we are united in one
interest; and that is why I, who would do her any mischief that so
coarse a wretch is capable of feeling, have sent for you to hear what
you have heard.'

I saw, by the change in her face, that someone was advancing behind me.
It was Mrs. Steerforth, who gave me her hand more coldly than of yore,
and with an augmentation of her former stateliness of manner, but still,
I perceived--and I was touched by it--with an ineffaceable remembrance
of my old love for her son. She was greatly altered. Her fine figure was
far less upright, her handsome face was deeply marked, and her hair was
almost white. But when she sat down on the seat, she was a handsome lady
still; and well I knew the bright eye with its lofty look, that had been
a light in my very dreams at school.

'Is Mr. Copperfield informed of everything, Rosa?'

'Yes.'

'And has he heard Littimer himself?'

'Yes; I have told him why you wished it.' 'You are a good girl. I have
had some slight correspondence with your former friend, sir,' addressing
me, 'but it has not restored his sense of duty or natural obligation.
Therefore I have no other object in this, than what Rosa has mentioned.
If, by the course which may relieve the mind of the decent man you
brought here (for whom I am sorry--I can say no more), my son may be
saved from again falling into the snares of a designing enemy, well!'

She drew herself up, and sat looking straight before her, far away.

'Madam,' I said respectfully, 'I understand. I assure you I am in no
danger of putting any strained construction on your motives. But I must
say, even to you, having known this injured family from childhood,
that if you suppose the girl, so deeply wronged, has not been cruelly
deluded, and would not rather die a hundred deaths than take a cup of
water from your son's hand now, you cherish a terrible mistake.'

'Well, Rosa, well!' said Mrs. Steerforth, as the other was about to
interpose, 'it is no matter. Let it be. You are married, sir, I am
told?'

I answered that I had been some time married.

'And are doing well? I hear little in the quiet life I lead, but I
understand you are beginning to be famous.'

'I have been very fortunate,' I said, 'and find my name connected with
some praise.'

'You have no mother?'--in a softened voice.

'No.'

'It is a pity,' she returned. 'She would have been proud of you. Good
night!'

I took the hand she held out with a dignified, unbending air, and it
was as calm in mine as if her breast had been at peace. Her pride could
still its very pulses, it appeared, and draw the placid veil before
her face, through which she sat looking straight before her on the far
distance.

As I moved away from them along the terrace, I could not help observing
how steadily they both sat gazing on the prospect, and how it thickened
and closed around them. Here and there, some early lamps were seen to
twinkle in the distant city; and in the eastern quarter of the sky
the lurid light still hovered. But, from the greater part of the broad
valley interposed, a mist was rising like a sea, which, mingling with
the darkness, made it seem as if the gathering waters would encompass
them. I have reason to remember this, and think of it with awe; for
before I looked upon those two again, a stormy sea had risen to their
feet.

Reflecting on what had been thus told me, I felt it right that it should
be communicated to Mr. Peggotty. On the following evening I went into
London in quest of him. He was always wandering about from place to
place, with his one object of recovering his niece before him; but was
more in London than elsewhere. Often and often, now, had I seen him in
the dead of night passing along the streets, searching, among the few
who loitered out of doors at those untimely hours, for what he dreaded
to find.

He kept a lodging over the little chandler's shop in Hungerford Market,
which I have had occasion to mention more than once, and from which he
first went forth upon his errand of mercy. Hither I directed my walk. On
making inquiry for him, I learned from the people of the house that he
had not gone out yet, and I should find him in his room upstairs.

He was sitting reading by a window in which he kept a few plants. The
room was very neat and orderly. I saw in a moment that it was always
kept prepared for her reception, and that he never went out but he
thought it possible he might bring her home. He had not heard my tap
at the door, and only raised his eyes when I laid my hand upon his
shoulder.

'Mas'r Davy! Thankee, sir! thankee hearty, for this visit! Sit ye down.
You're kindly welcome, sir!'

'Mr. Peggotty,' said I, taking the chair he handed me, 'don't expect
much! I have heard some news.'

'Of Em'ly!'

He put his hand, in a nervous manner, on his mouth, and turned pale, as
he fixed his eyes on mine.

'It gives no clue to where she is; but she is not with him.'

He sat down, looking intently at me, and listened in profound silence
to all I had to tell. I well remember the sense of dignity, beauty even,
with which the patient gravity of his face impressed me, when, having
gradually removed his eyes from mine, he sat looking downward, leaning
his forehead on his hand. He offered no interruption, but remained
throughout perfectly still. He seemed to pursue her figure through
the narrative, and to let every other shape go by him, as if it were
nothing.

When I had done, he shaded his face, and continued silent. I looked out
of the window for a little while, and occupied myself with the plants.

'How do you fare to feel about it, Mas'r Davy?' he inquired at length.

'I think that she is living,' I replied.

'I doen't know. Maybe the first shock was too rough, and in the wildness
of her art--! That there blue water as she used to speak on. Could she
have thowt o' that so many year, because it was to be her grave!'

He said this, musing, in a low, frightened voice; and walked across the
little room.

'And yet,' he added, 'Mas'r Davy, I have felt so sure as she was
living--I have know'd, awake and sleeping, as it was so trew that I
should find her--I have been so led on by it, and held up by it--that I
doen't believe I can have been deceived. No! Em'ly's alive!'

He put his hand down firmly on the table, and set his sunburnt face into
a resolute expression.

'My niece, Em'ly, is alive, sir!' he said, steadfastly. 'I doen't know
wheer it comes from, or how 'tis, but I am told as she's alive!'

He looked almost like a man inspired, as he said it. I waited for a
few moments, until he could give me his undivided attention; and then
proceeded to explain the precaution, that, it had occurred to me last
night, it would be wise to take.

'Now, my dear friend--'I began.

'Thankee, thankee, kind sir,' he said, grasping my hand in both of his.

'If she should make her way to London, which is likely--for where could
she lose herself so readily as in this vast city; and what would she
wish to do, but lose and hide herself, if she does not go home?--'

'And she won't go home,' he interposed, shaking his head mournfully. 'If
she had left of her own accord, she might; not as It was, sir.'

'If she should come here,' said I, 'I believe there is one person,
here, more likely to discover her than any other in the world. Do
you remember--hear what I say, with fortitude--think of your great
object!--do you remember Martha?'

'Of our town?'

I needed no other answer than his face.

'Do you know that she is in London?'

'I have seen her in the streets,' he answered, with a shiver.

'But you don't know,' said I, 'that Emily was charitable to her, with
Ham's help, long before she fled from home. Nor, that, when we met one
night, and spoke together in the room yonder, over the way, she listened
at the door.'

'Mas'r Davy!' he replied in astonishment. 'That night when it snew so
hard?'

'That night. I have never seen her since. I went back, after parting
from you, to speak to her, but she was gone. I was unwilling to mention
her to you then, and I am now; but she is the person of whom I speak,
and with whom I think we should communicate. Do you understand?'

'Too well, sir,' he replied. We had sunk our voices, almost to a
whisper, and continued to speak in that tone.

'You say you have seen her. Do you think that you could find her? I
could only hope to do so by chance.'

'I think, Mas'r Davy, I know wheer to look.'

'It is dark. Being together, shall we go out now, and try to find her
tonight?'

He assented, and prepared to accompany me. Without appearing to observe
what he was doing, I saw how carefully he adjusted the little room,
put a candle ready and the means of lighting it, arranged the bed, and
finally took out of a drawer one of her dresses (I remember to have
seen her wear it), neatly folded with some other garments, and a bonnet,
which he placed upon a chair. He made no allusion to these clothes,
neither did I. There they had been waiting for her, many and many a
night, no doubt.

'The time was, Mas'r Davy,' he said, as we came downstairs, 'when I
thowt this girl, Martha, a'most like the dirt underneath my Em'ly's
feet. God forgive me, theer's a difference now!'

As we went along, partly to hold him in conversation, and partly to
satisfy myself, I asked him about Ham. He said, almost in the same words
as formerly, that Ham was just the same, 'wearing away his life with
kiender no care nohow for 't; but never murmuring, and liked by all'.

I asked him what he thought Ham's state of mind was, in reference to the
cause of their misfortunes? Whether he believed it was dangerous? What
he supposed, for example, Ham would do, if he and Steerforth ever should
encounter?

'I doen't know, sir,' he replied. 'I have thowt of it oftentimes, but I
can't awize myself of it, no matters.'

I recalled to his remembrance the morning after her departure, when we
were all three on the beach. 'Do you recollect,' said I, 'a certain wild
way in which he looked out to sea, and spoke about "the end of it"?'

'Sure I do!' said he.

'What do you suppose he meant?'

'Mas'r Davy,' he replied, 'I've put the question to myself a mort o'
times, and never found no answer. And theer's one curious thing--that,
though he is so pleasant, I wouldn't fare to feel comfortable to try and
get his mind upon 't. He never said a wured to me as warn't as dootiful
as dootiful could be, and it ain't likely as he'd begin to speak any
other ways now; but it's fur from being fleet water in his mind, where
them thowts lays. It's deep, sir, and I can't see down.'

'You are right,' said I, 'and that has sometimes made me anxious.'

'And me too, Mas'r Davy,' he rejoined. 'Even more so, I do assure you,
than his ventersome ways, though both belongs to the alteration in him.
I doen't know as he'd do violence under any circumstances, but I hope as
them two may be kep asunders.'

We had come, through Temple Bar, into the city. Conversing no more now,
and walking at my side, he yielded himself up to the one aim of his
devoted life, and went on, with that hushed concentration of his
faculties which would have made his figure solitary in a multitude.
We were not far from Blackfriars Bridge, when he turned his head and
pointed to a solitary female figure flitting along the opposite side of
the street. I knew it, readily, to be the figure that we sought.

We crossed the road, and were pressing on towards her, when it occurred
to me that she might be more disposed to feel a woman's interest in the
lost girl, if we spoke to her in a quieter place, aloof from the crowd,
and where we should be less observed. I advised my companion, therefore,
that we should not address her yet, but follow her; consulting in this,
likewise, an indistinct desire I had, to know where she went.

He acquiescing, we followed at a distance: never losing sight of her,
but never caring to come very near, as she frequently looked about.
Once, she stopped to listen to a band of music; and then we stopped too.

She went on a long way. Still we went on. It was evident, from the
manner in which she held her course, that she was going to some fixed
destination; and this, and her keeping in the busy streets, and I
suppose the strange fascination in the secrecy and mystery of so
following anyone, made me adhere to my first purpose. At length she
turned into a dull, dark street, where the noise and crowd were lost;
and I said, 'We may speak to her now'; and, mending our pace, we went
after her.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Intelligence. David is acquiring some fame as a writer. He is passing Mrs. Steerforth's house one day when a maid comes out and tells him that Rosa Dartle would like to see him. David finds her in the garden, and she summons Littimer and instructs him to tell David what has happened with Steerforth and Little Em'ly. Littimer reports that he has been traveling with the couple in continental Europe. At first, Steerforth was happy with Little Em'ly, who was very "improvable" and learned the languages of the countries they visited. But after some time, Steerforth became tired of her moods, and abandoned Little Em'ly with Littimer in a villa in Naples. Steerforth told Littimer to marry Em'ly himself, but Em'ly became furious and hysterical at this proposal. Littimer locked her in a room to prevent her doing any harm, but she escaped through a window and ran away. Littimer has seen nothing of her since. Steerforth insulted Littimer, and Littimer left his service and returned to England. He is now looking for a job. David says that he will report what Littimer has said to Mr. Peggotty, and he warns Littimer to stay out of public places. Littimer is unafraid, as in England, people are not allowed to take the law into their own hands. Rosa tells David that Steerforth is sailing off the coast of Spain, and that there is a breach between him and his mother. Rosa and Mrs. Steerforth blame Little Em'ly for everything that has happened, with Rosa calling her a devil. They want her to be found in order to protect Steerforth from falling prey to her again. David reports what he has learned to Mr. Peggotty, who is in London. They decide to seek out Martha to ask her to help find Little Em'ly. They find her walking the city streets and follow her to a quieter area, where they will not be observed talking to her


prompt:
Chapter: We were now down in Westminster. We had turned back to follow her,
having encountered her coming towards us; and Westminster Abbey was
the point at which she passed from the lights and noise of the leading
streets. She proceeded so quickly, when she got free of the two currents
of passengers setting towards and from the bridge, that, between this
and the advance she had of us when she struck off, we were in the narrow
water-side street by Millbank before we came up with her. At that moment
she crossed the road, as if to avoid the footsteps that she heard so
close behind; and, without looking back, passed on even more rapidly.

A glimpse of the river through a dull gateway, where some waggons were
housed for the night, seemed to arrest my feet. I touched my companion
without speaking, and we both forbore to cross after her, and both
followed on that opposite side of the way; keeping as quietly as we
could in the shadow of the houses, but keeping very near her.

There was, and is when I write, at the end of that low-lying street,
a dilapidated little wooden building, probably an obsolete old
ferry-house. Its position is just at that point where the street ceases,
and the road begins to lie between a row of houses and the river. As
soon as she came here, and saw the water, she stopped as if she had come
to her destination; and presently went slowly along by the brink of the
river, looking intently at it.

All the way here, I had supposed that she was going to some house;
indeed, I had vaguely entertained the hope that the house might be in
some way associated with the lost girl. But that one dark glimpse of the
river, through the gateway, had instinctively prepared me for her going
no farther.

The neighbourhood was a dreary one at that time; as oppressive, sad, and
solitary by night, as any about London. There were neither wharves nor
houses on the melancholy waste of road near the great blank Prison. A
sluggish ditch deposited its mud at the prison walls. Coarse grass and
rank weeds straggled over all the marshy land in the vicinity. In one
part, carcases of houses, inauspiciously begun and never finished,
rotted away. In another, the ground was cumbered with rusty iron
monsters of steam-boilers, wheels, cranks, pipes, furnaces, paddles,
anchors, diving-bells, windmill-sails, and I know not what strange
objects, accumulated by some speculator, and grovelling in the dust,
underneath which--having sunk into the soil of their own weight in wet
weather--they had the appearance of vainly trying to hide themselves.
The clash and glare of sundry fiery Works upon the river-side, arose
by night to disturb everything except the heavy and unbroken smoke that
poured out of their chimneys. Slimy gaps and causeways, winding among
old wooden piles, with a sickly substance clinging to the latter, like
green hair, and the rags of last year's handbills offering rewards for
drowned men fluttering above high-water mark, led down through the ooze
and slush to the ebb-tide. There was a story that one of the pits
dug for the dead in the time of the Great Plague was hereabout; and
a blighting influence seemed to have proceeded from it over the whole
place. Or else it looked as if it had gradually decomposed into that
nightmare condition, out of the overflowings of the polluted stream.

As if she were a part of the refuse it had cast out, and left to
corruption and decay, the girl we had followed strayed down to the
river's brink, and stood in the midst of this night-picture, lonely and
still, looking at the water.

There were some boats and barges astrand in the mud, and these enabled
us to come within a few yards of her without being seen. I then signed
to Mr. Peggotty to remain where he was, and emerged from their shade to
speak to her. I did not approach her solitary figure without trembling;
for this gloomy end to her determined walk, and the way in which she
stood, almost within the cavernous shadow of the iron bridge, looking
at the lights crookedly reflected in the strong tide, inspired a dread
within me.

I think she was talking to herself. I am sure, although absorbed in
gazing at the water, that her shawl was off her shoulders, and that she
was muffling her hands in it, in an unsettled and bewildered way, more
like the action of a sleep-walker than a waking person. I know, and
never can forget, that there was that in her wild manner which gave me
no assurance but that she would sink before my eyes, until I had her arm
within my grasp.

At the same moment I said 'Martha!'

She uttered a terrified scream, and struggled with me with such strength
that I doubt if I could have held her alone. But a stronger hand than
mine was laid upon her; and when she raised her frightened eyes and saw
whose it was, she made but one more effort and dropped down between us.
We carried her away from the water to where there were some dry stones,
and there laid her down, crying and moaning. In a little while she sat
among the stones, holding her wretched head with both her hands.

'Oh, the river!' she cried passionately. 'Oh, the river!'

'Hush, hush!' said I. 'Calm yourself.'

But she still repeated the same words, continually exclaiming, 'Oh, the
river!' over and over again.

'I know it's like me!' she exclaimed. 'I know that I belong to it.
I know that it's the natural company of such as I am! It comes from
country places, where there was once no harm in it--and it creeps
through the dismal streets, defiled and miserable--and it goes away,
like my life, to a great sea, that is always troubled--and I feel that
I must go with it!' I have never known what despair was, except in the
tone of those words.

'I can't keep away from it. I can't forget it. It haunts me day and
night. It's the only thing in all the world that I am fit for, or that's
fit for me. Oh, the dreadful river!'

The thought passed through my mind that in the face of my companion,
as he looked upon her without speech or motion, I might have read his
niece's history, if I had known nothing of it. I never saw, in any
painting or reality, horror and compassion so impressively blended. He
shook as if he would have fallen; and his hand--I touched it with my
own, for his appearance alarmed me--was deadly cold.

'She is in a state of frenzy,' I whispered to him. 'She will speak
differently in a little time.'

I don't know what he would have said in answer. He made some motion with
his mouth, and seemed to think he had spoken; but he had only pointed to
her with his outstretched hand.

A new burst of crying came upon her now, in which she once more hid
her face among the stones, and lay before us, a prostrate image of
humiliation and ruin. Knowing that this state must pass, before we could
speak to her with any hope, I ventured to restrain him when he would
have raised her, and we stood by in silence until she became more
tranquil.

'Martha,' said I then, leaning down, and helping her to rise--she seemed
to want to rise as if with the intention of going away, but she was
weak, and leaned against a boat. 'Do you know who this is, who is with
me?'

She said faintly, 'Yes.'

'Do you know that we have followed you a long way tonight?'

She shook her head. She looked neither at him nor at me, but stood in
a humble attitude, holding her bonnet and shawl in one hand, without
appearing conscious of them, and pressing the other, clenched, against
her forehead.

'Are you composed enough,' said I, 'to speak on the subject which so
interested you--I hope Heaven may remember it!--that snowy night?'

Her sobs broke out afresh, and she murmured some inarticulate thanks to
me for not having driven her away from the door.

'I want to say nothing for myself,' she said, after a few moments. 'I
am bad, I am lost. I have no hope at all. But tell him, sir,' she had
shrunk away from him, 'if you don't feel too hard to me to do it, that
I never was in any way the cause of his misfortune.' 'It has never been
attributed to you,' I returned, earnestly responding to her earnestness.

'It was you, if I don't deceive myself,' she said, in a broken voice,
'that came into the kitchen, the night she took such pity on me; was so
gentle to me; didn't shrink away from me like all the rest, and gave me
such kind help! Was it you, sir?'

'It was,' said I.

'I should have been in the river long ago,' she said, glancing at it
with a terrible expression, 'if any wrong to her had been upon my mind.
I never could have kept out of it a single winter's night, if I had not
been free of any share in that!'

'The cause of her flight is too well understood,' I said. 'You are
innocent of any part in it, we thoroughly believe,--we know.'

'Oh, I might have been much the better for her, if I had had a better
heart!' exclaimed the girl, with most forlorn regret; 'for she was
always good to me! She never spoke a word to me but what was pleasant
and right. Is it likely I would try to make her what I am myself,
knowing what I am myself, so well? When I lost everything that makes
life dear, the worst of all my thoughts was that I was parted for ever
from her!'

Mr. Peggotty, standing with one hand on the gunwale of the boat, and his
eyes cast down, put his disengaged hand before his face.

'And when I heard what had happened before that snowy night, from some
belonging to our town,' cried Martha, 'the bitterest thought in all my
mind was, that the people would remember she once kept company with me,
and would say I had corrupted her! When, Heaven knows, I would have died
to have brought back her good name!'

Long unused to any self-control, the piercing agony of her remorse and
grief was terrible.

'To have died, would not have been much--what can I say?---I would
have lived!' she cried. 'I would have lived to be old, in the wretched
streets--and to wander about, avoided, in the dark--and to see the day
break on the ghastly line of houses, and remember how the same sun used
to shine into my room, and wake me once--I would have done even that, to
save her!'

Sinking on the stones, she took some in each hand, and clenched them
up, as if she would have ground them. She writhed into some new posture
constantly: stiffening her arms, twisting them before her face, as
though to shut out from her eyes the little light there was, and
drooping her head, as if it were heavy with insupportable recollections.

'What shall I ever do!' she said, fighting thus with her despair. 'How
can I go on as I am, a solitary curse to myself, a living disgrace to
everyone I come near!' Suddenly she turned to my companion. 'Stamp upon
me, kill me! When she was your pride, you would have thought I had
done her harm if I had brushed against her in the street. You can't
believe--why should you?---a syllable that comes out of my lips. It
would be a burning shame upon you, even now, if she and I exchanged a
word. I don't complain. I don't say she and I are alike--I know there
is a long, long way between us. I only say, with all my guilt and
wretchedness upon my head, that I am grateful to her from my soul, and
love her. Oh, don't think that all the power I had of loving anything is
quite worn out! Throw me away, as all the world does. Kill me for being
what I am, and having ever known her; but don't think that of me!'

He looked upon her, while she made this supplication, in a wild
distracted manner; and, when she was silent, gently raised her.

'Martha,' said Mr. Peggotty, 'God forbid as I should judge you. Forbid
as I, of all men, should do that, my girl! You doen't know half the
change that's come, in course of time, upon me, when you think it
likely. Well!' he paused a moment, then went on. 'You doen't understand
how 'tis that this here gentleman and me has wished to speak to you. You
doen't understand what 'tis we has afore us. Listen now!'

His influence upon her was complete. She stood, shrinkingly, before him,
as if she were afraid to meet his eyes; but her passionate sorrow was
quite hushed and mute.

'If you heerd,' said Mr. Peggotty, 'owt of what passed between Mas'r
Davy and me, th' night when it snew so hard, you know as I have
been--wheer not--fur to seek my dear niece. My dear niece,' he repeated
steadily. 'Fur she's more dear to me now, Martha, than she was dear
afore.'

She put her hands before her face; but otherwise remained quiet.

'I have heerd her tell,' said Mr. Peggotty, 'as you was early left
fatherless and motherless, with no friend fur to take, in a rough
seafaring-way, their place. Maybe you can guess that if you'd had such
a friend, you'd have got into a way of being fond of him in course of
time, and that my niece was kiender daughter-like to me.'

As she was silently trembling, he put her shawl carefully about her,
taking it up from the ground for that purpose.

'Whereby,' said he, 'I know, both as she would go to the wureld's
furdest end with me, if she could once see me again; and that she would
fly to the wureld's furdest end to keep off seeing me. For though she
ain't no call to doubt my love, and doen't--and doen't,' he repeated,
with a quiet assurance of the truth of what he said, 'there's shame
steps in, and keeps betwixt us.'

I read, in every word of his plain impressive way of delivering himself,
new evidence of his having thought of this one topic, in every feature
it presented.

'According to our reckoning,' he proceeded, 'Mas'r Davy's here, and
mine, she is like, one day, to make her own poor solitary course to
London. We believe--Mas'r Davy, me, and all of us--that you are as
innocent of everything that has befell her, as the unborn child. You've
spoke of her being pleasant, kind, and gentle to you. Bless her, I knew
she was! I knew she always was, to all. You're thankful to her, and you
love her. Help us all you can to find her, and may Heaven reward you!'

She looked at him hastily, and for the first time, as if she were
doubtful of what he had said.

'Will you trust me?' she asked, in a low voice of astonishment.

'Full and free!' said Mr. Peggotty.

'To speak to her, if I should ever find her; shelter her, if I have any
shelter to divide with her; and then, without her knowledge, come to
you, and bring you to her?' she asked hurriedly.

We both replied together, 'Yes!'

She lifted up her eyes, and solemnly declared that she would devote
herself to this task, fervently and faithfully. That she would never
waver in it, never be diverted from it, never relinquish it, while there
was any chance of hope. If she were not true to it, might the object
she now had in life, which bound her to something devoid of evil, in its
passing away from her, leave her more forlorn and more despairing, if
that were possible, than she had been upon the river's brink that night;
and then might all help, human and Divine, renounce her evermore!

She did not raise her voice above her breath, or address us, but said
this to the night sky; then stood profoundly quiet, looking at the
gloomy water.

We judged it expedient, now, to tell her all we knew; which I recounted
at length. She listened with great attention, and with a face that often
changed, but had the same purpose in all its varying expressions. Her
eyes occasionally filled with tears, but those she repressed. It seemed
as if her spirit were quite altered, and she could not be too quiet.

She asked, when all was told, where we were to be communicated with, if
occasion should arise. Under a dull lamp in the road, I wrote our two
addresses on a leaf of my pocket-book, which I tore out and gave to
her, and which she put in her poor bosom. I asked her where she lived
herself. She said, after a pause, in no place long. It were better not
to know.

Mr. Peggotty suggesting to me, in a whisper, what had already occurred
to myself, I took out my purse; but I could not prevail upon her to
accept any money, nor could I exact any promise from her that she would
do so at another time. I represented to her that Mr. Peggotty could
not be called, for one in his condition, poor; and that the idea of her
engaging in this search, while depending on her own resources, shocked
us both. She continued steadfast. In this particular, his influence
upon her was equally powerless with mine. She gratefully thanked him but
remained inexorable.

'There may be work to be got,' she said. 'I'll try.'

'At least take some assistance,' I returned, 'until you have tried.'

'I could not do what I have promised, for money,' she replied. 'I could
not take it, if I was starving. To give me money would be to take away
your trust, to take away the object that you have given me, to take away
the only certain thing that saves me from the river.'

'In the name of the great judge,' said I, 'before whom you and all of us
must stand at His dread time, dismiss that terrible idea! We can all do
some good, if we will.'

She trembled, and her lip shook, and her face was paler, as she
answered:

'It has been put into your hearts, perhaps, to save a wretched creature
for repentance. I am afraid to think so; it seems too bold. If any good
should come of me, I might begin to hope; for nothing but harm has ever
come of my deeds yet. I am to be trusted, for the first time in a long
while, with my miserable life, on account of what you have given me to
try for. I know no more, and I can say no more.'

Again she repressed the tears that had begun to flow; and, putting out
her trembling hand, and touching Mr. Peggotty, as if there was some
healing virtue in him, went away along the desolate road. She had been
ill, probably for a long time. I observed, upon that closer opportunity
of observation, that she was worn and haggard, and that her sunken eyes
expressed privation and endurance.

We followed her at a short distance, our way lying in the same
direction, until we came back into the lighted and populous streets. I
had such implicit confidence in her declaration, that I then put it to
Mr. Peggotty, whether it would not seem, in the onset, like distrusting
her, to follow her any farther. He being of the same mind, and equally
reliant on her, we suffered her to take her own road, and took ours,
which was towards Highgate. He accompanied me a good part of the way;
and when we parted, with a prayer for the success of this fresh effort,
there was a new and thoughtful compassion in him that I was at no loss
to interpret.

It was midnight when I arrived at home. I had reached my own gate, and
was standing listening for the deep bell of St. Paul's, the sound
of which I thought had been borne towards me among the multitude of
striking clocks, when I was rather surprised to see that the door of my
aunt's cottage was open, and that a faint light in the entry was shining
out across the road.

Thinking that my aunt might have relapsed into one of her old alarms,
and might be watching the progress of some imaginary conflagration in
the distance, I went to speak to her. It was with very great surprise
that I saw a man standing in her little garden.

He had a glass and bottle in his hand, and was in the act of drinking. I
stopped short, among the thick foliage outside, for the moon was up now,
though obscured; and I recognized the man whom I had once supposed to be
a delusion of Mr. Dick's, and had once encountered with my aunt in the
streets of the city.

He was eating as well as drinking, and seemed to eat with a hungry
appetite. He seemed curious regarding the cottage, too, as if it were
the first time he had seen it. After stooping to put the bottle on the
ground, he looked up at the windows, and looked about; though with a
covert and impatient air, as if he was anxious to be gone.

The light in the passage was obscured for a moment, and my aunt came
out. She was agitated, and told some money into his hand. I heard it
chink.

'What's the use of this?' he demanded.

'I can spare no more,' returned my aunt.

'Then I can't go,' said he. 'Here! You may take it back!'

'You bad man,' returned my aunt, with great emotion; 'how can you use me
so? But why do I ask? It is because you know how weak I am! What have
I to do, to free myself for ever of your visits, but to abandon you to
your deserts?'

'And why don't you abandon me to my deserts?' said he.

'You ask me why!' returned my aunt. 'What a heart you must have!'

He stood moodily rattling the money, and shaking his head, until at
length he said:

'Is this all you mean to give me, then?'

'It is all I CAN give you,' said my aunt. 'You know I have had losses,
and am poorer than I used to be. I have told you so. Having got it, why
do you give me the pain of looking at you for another moment, and seeing
what you have become?'

'I have become shabby enough, if you mean that,' he said. 'I lead the
life of an owl.'

'You stripped me of the greater part of all I ever had,' said my aunt.
'You closed my heart against the whole world, years and years. You
treated me falsely, ungratefully, and cruelly. Go, and repent of it.
Don't add new injuries to the long, long list of injuries you have done
me!'

'Aye!' he returned. 'It's all very fine--Well! I must do the best I can,
for the present, I suppose.'

In spite of himself, he appeared abashed by my aunt's indignant tears,
and came slouching out of the garden. Taking two or three quick steps,
as if I had just come up, I met him at the gate, and went in as he came
out. We eyed one another narrowly in passing, and with no favour.

'Aunt,' said I, hurriedly. 'This man alarming you again! Let me speak to
him. Who is he?'

'Child,' returned my aunt, taking my arm, 'come in, and don't speak to
me for ten minutes.'

We sat down in her little parlour. My aunt retired behind the round
green fan of former days, which was screwed on the back of a chair, and
occasionally wiped her eyes, for about a quarter of an hour. Then she
came out, and took a seat beside me.

'Trot,' said my aunt, calmly, 'it's my husband.'

'Your husband, aunt? I thought he had been dead!'

'Dead to me,' returned my aunt, 'but living.'

I sat in silent amazement.

'Betsey Trotwood don't look a likely subject for the tender passion,'
said my aunt, composedly, 'but the time was, Trot, when she believed in
that man most entirely. When she loved him, Trot, right well. When there
was no proof of attachment and affection that she would not have given
him. He repaid her by breaking her fortune, and nearly breaking her
heart. So she put all that sort of sentiment, once and for ever, in a
grave, and filled it up, and flattened it down.'

'My dear, good aunt!'

'I left him,' my aunt proceeded, laying her hand as usual on the back of
mine, 'generously. I may say at this distance of time, Trot, that I left
him generously. He had been so cruel to me, that I might have effected
a separation on easy terms for myself; but I did not. He soon made ducks
and drakes of what I gave him, sank lower and lower, married another
woman, I believe, became an adventurer, a gambler, and a cheat. What he
is now, you see. But he was a fine-looking man when I married him,' said
my aunt, with an echo of her old pride and admiration in her tone; 'and
I believed him--I was a fool!--to be the soul of honour!'

She gave my hand a squeeze, and shook her head.

'He is nothing to me now, Trot--less than nothing. But, sooner than have
him punished for his offences (as he would be if he prowled about in
this country), I give him more money than I can afford, at intervals
when he reappears, to go away. I was a fool when I married him; and I am
so far an incurable fool on that subject, that, for the sake of what
I once believed him to be, I wouldn't have even this shadow of my idle
fancy hardly dealt with. For I was in earnest, Trot, if ever a woman
was.'

My aunt dismissed the matter with a heavy sigh, and smoothed her dress.

'There, my dear!' she said. 'Now you know the beginning, middle, and
end, and all about it. We won't mention the subject to one another any
more; neither, of course, will you mention it to anybody else. This is
my grumpy, frumpy story, and we'll keep it to ourselves, Trot!'

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Martha. David and Mr. Peggotty follow Martha to a polluted and run-down area, where she is standing and staring at the river. When they speak to her, she grows hysterical. She tells them that she is like the river, in that she is from an innocent rural area but has come to the town and become corrupted. She feels that she belongs in the river and should drown herself. Martha fears that the men will blame her for corrupting Little Em'ly, but they reassure her that they know her to be blameless. She agrees to help them find her, and refuses to take any money from them. She is glad of the opportunity to do some good in her life. David reaches home at midnight and notices the door to Betsey's cottage lying open. He sees a man in her garden. He knows that this is the man of whom Mr. Dick spoke, and with whom Betsey got into the hackney carriage. David sees Betsey come out of her cottage and give him money. After the man leaves, Betsey tells David that he is her husband, who is not dead. She once loved him, but he wasted her fortune and broke her heart. She gave him a generous settlement and left him. Ever since, she has been paying him money to leave her alone. She says she was a fool to marry him. She asks David to tell no one her secret.


prompt:
Chapter: I laboured hard at my book, without allowing it to interfere with the
punctual discharge of my newspaper duties; and it came out and was very
successful. I was not stunned by the praise which sounded in my ears,
notwithstanding that I was keenly alive to it, and thought better of
my own performance, I have little doubt, than anybody else did. It has
always been in my observation of human nature, that a man who has any
good reason to believe in himself never flourishes himself before the
faces of other people in order that they may believe in him. For this
reason, I retained my modesty in very self-respect; and the more praise
I got, the more I tried to deserve.

It is not my purpose, in this record, though in all other essentials
it is my written memory, to pursue the history of my own fictions. They
express themselves, and I leave them to themselves. When I refer to
them, incidentally, it is only as a part of my progress.

Having some foundation for believing, by this time, that nature and
accident had made me an author, I pursued my vocation with confidence.
Without such assurance I should certainly have left it alone, and
bestowed my energy on some other endeavour. I should have tried to find
out what nature and accident really had made me, and to be that, and
nothing else. I had been writing, in the newspaper and elsewhere, so
prosperously, that when my new success was achieved, I considered myself
reasonably entitled to escape from the dreary debates. One joyful night,
therefore, I noted down the music of the parliamentary bagpipes for the
last time, and I have never heard it since; though I still recognize the
old drone in the newspapers, without any substantial variation (except,
perhaps, that there is more of it), all the livelong session.

I now write of the time when I had been married, I suppose, about a year
and a half. After several varieties of experiment, we had given up the
housekeeping as a bad job. The house kept itself, and we kept a page.
The principal function of this retainer was to quarrel with the cook;
in which respect he was a perfect Whittington, without his cat, or the
remotest chance of being made Lord Mayor.

He appears to me to have lived in a hail of saucepan-lids. His whole
existence was a scuffle. He would shriek for help on the most improper
occasions,--as when we had a little dinner-party, or a few friends in
the evening,--and would come tumbling out of the kitchen, with iron
missiles flying after him. We wanted to get rid of him, but he was very
much attached to us, and wouldn't go. He was a tearful boy, and broke
into such deplorable lamentations, when a cessation of our connexion
was hinted at, that we were obliged to keep him. He had no mother--no
anything in the way of a relative, that I could discover, except a
sister, who fled to America the moment we had taken him off her hands;
and he became quartered on us like a horrible young changeling. He had
a lively perception of his own unfortunate state, and was always rubbing
his eyes with the sleeve of his jacket, or stooping to blow his nose on
the extreme corner of a little pocket-handkerchief, which he never would
take completely out of his pocket, but always economized and secreted.

This unlucky page, engaged in an evil hour at six pounds ten per annum,
was a source of continual trouble to me. I watched him as he grew--and
he grew like scarlet beans--with painful apprehensions of the time when
he would begin to shave; even of the days when he would be bald or grey.
I saw no prospect of ever getting rid of him; and, projecting myself
into the future, used to think what an inconvenience he would be when he
was an old man.

I never expected anything less, than this unfortunate's manner of
getting me out of my difficulty. He stole Dora's watch, which, like
everything else belonging to us, had no particular place of its own;
and, converting it into money, spent the produce (he was always a
weak-minded boy) in incessantly riding up and down between London and
Uxbridge outside the coach. He was taken to Bow Street, as well as
I remember, on the completion of his fifteenth journey; when
four-and-sixpence, and a second-hand fife which he couldn't play, were
found upon his person.

The surprise and its consequences would have been much less disagreeable
to me if he had not been penitent. But he was very penitent indeed, and
in a peculiar way--not in the lump, but by instalments. For example:
the day after that on which I was obliged to appear against him, he made
certain revelations touching a hamper in the cellar, which we believed
to be full of wine, but which had nothing in it except bottles and
corks. We supposed he had now eased his mind, and told the worst he knew
of the cook; but, a day or two afterwards, his conscience sustained a
new twinge, and he disclosed how she had a little girl, who, early every
morning, took away our bread; and also how he himself had been suborned
to maintain the milkman in coals. In two or three days more, I was
informed by the authorities of his having led to the discovery of
sirloins of beef among the kitchen-stuff, and sheets in the rag-bag. A
little while afterwards, he broke out in an entirely new direction, and
confessed to a knowledge of burglarious intentions as to our premises,
on the part of the pot-boy, who was immediately taken up. I got to be so
ashamed of being such a victim, that I would have given him any money
to hold his tongue, or would have offered a round bribe for his being
permitted to run away. It was an aggravating circumstance in the case
that he had no idea of this, but conceived that he was making me amends
in every new discovery: not to say, heaping obligations on my head.

At last I ran away myself, whenever I saw an emissary of the police
approaching with some new intelligence; and lived a stealthy life until
he was tried and ordered to be transported. Even then he couldn't be
quiet, but was always writing us letters; and wanted so much to see Dora
before he went away, that Dora went to visit him, and fainted when she
found herself inside the iron bars. In short, I had no peace of my life
until he was expatriated, and made (as I afterwards heard) a shepherd
of, 'up the country' somewhere; I have no geographical idea where.

All this led me into some serious reflections, and presented our
mistakes in a new aspect; as I could not help communicating to Dora one
evening, in spite of my tenderness for her.

'My love,' said I, 'it is very painful to me to think that our want of
system and management, involves not only ourselves (which we have got
used to), but other people.'

'You have been silent for a long time, and now you are going to be
cross!' said Dora.

'No, my dear, indeed! Let me explain to you what I mean.'

'I think I don't want to know,' said Dora.

'But I want you to know, my love. Put Jip down.'

Dora put his nose to mine, and said 'Boh!' to drive my seriousness away;
but, not succeeding, ordered him into his Pagoda, and sat looking at
me, with her hands folded, and a most resigned little expression of
countenance.

'The fact is, my dear,' I began, 'there is contagion in us. We infect
everyone about us.'

I might have gone on in this figurative manner, if Dora's face had not
admonished me that she was wondering with all her might whether I was
going to propose any new kind of vaccination, or other medical remedy,
for this unwholesome state of ours. Therefore I checked myself, and made
my meaning plainer.

'It is not merely, my pet,' said I, 'that we lose money and comfort, and
even temper sometimes, by not learning to be more careful; but that we
incur the serious responsibility of spoiling everyone who comes into
our service, or has any dealings with us. I begin to be afraid that the
fault is not entirely on one side, but that these people all turn out
ill because we don't turn out very well ourselves.'

'Oh, what an accusation,' exclaimed Dora, opening her eyes wide; 'to say
that you ever saw me take gold watches! Oh!'

'My dearest,' I remonstrated, 'don't talk preposterous nonsense! Who has
made the least allusion to gold watches?'

'You did,' returned Dora. 'You know you did. You said I hadn't turned
out well, and compared me to him.'

'To whom?' I asked.

'To the page,' sobbed Dora. 'Oh, you cruel fellow, to compare your
affectionate wife to a transported page! Why didn't you tell me
your opinion of me before we were married? Why didn't you say,
you hard-hearted thing, that you were convinced I was worse than a
transported page? Oh, what a dreadful opinion to have of me! Oh, my
goodness!'

'Now, Dora, my love,' I returned, gently trying to remove the
handkerchief she pressed to her eyes, 'this is not only very ridiculous
of you, but very wrong. In the first place, it's not true.'

'You always said he was a story-teller,' sobbed Dora. 'And now you say
the same of me! Oh, what shall I do! What shall I do!'

'My darling girl,' I retorted, 'I really must entreat you to be
reasonable, and listen to what I did say, and do say. My dear Dora,
unless we learn to do our duty to those whom we employ, they will never
learn to do their duty to us. I am afraid we present opportunities to
people to do wrong, that never ought to be presented. Even if we were
as lax as we are, in all our arrangements, by choice--which we are
not--even if we liked it, and found it agreeable to be so--which we
don't--I am persuaded we should have no right to go on in this way. We
are positively corrupting people. We are bound to think of that. I can't
help thinking of it, Dora. It is a reflection I am unable to dismiss,
and it sometimes makes me very uneasy. There, dear, that's all. Come
now. Don't be foolish!'

Dora would not allow me, for a long time, to remove the handkerchief.
She sat sobbing and murmuring behind it, that, if I was uneasy, why had
I ever been married? Why hadn't I said, even the day before we went to
church, that I knew I should be uneasy, and I would rather not? If I
couldn't bear her, why didn't I send her away to her aunts at Putney, or
to Julia Mills in India? Julia would be glad to see her, and would not
call her a transported page; Julia never had called her anything of the
sort. In short, Dora was so afflicted, and so afflicted me by being
in that condition, that I felt it was of no use repeating this kind of
effort, though never so mildly, and I must take some other course.

What other course was left to take? To 'form her mind'? This was a
common phrase of words which had a fair and promising sound, and I
resolved to form Dora's mind.

I began immediately. When Dora was very childish, and I would
have infinitely preferred to humour her, I tried to be grave--and
disconcerted her, and myself too. I talked to her on the subjects which
occupied my thoughts; and I read Shakespeare to her--and fatigued her
to the last degree. I accustomed myself to giving her, as it were quite
casually, little scraps of useful information, or sound opinion--and she
started from them when I let them off, as if they had been crackers.
No matter how incidentally or naturally I endeavoured to form my little
wife's mind, I could not help seeing that she always had an instinctive
perception of what I was about, and became a prey to the keenest
apprehensions. In particular, it was clear to me, that she thought
Shakespeare a terrible fellow. The formation went on very slowly.

I pressed Traddles into the service without his knowledge; and whenever
he came to see us, exploded my mines upon him for the edification of
Dora at second hand. The amount of practical wisdom I bestowed upon
Traddles in this manner was immense, and of the best quality; but it
had no other effect upon Dora than to depress her spirits, and make her
always nervous with the dread that it would be her turn next. I found
myself in the condition of a schoolmaster, a trap, a pitfall; of always
playing spider to Dora's fly, and always pouncing out of my hole to her
infinite disturbance.

Still, looking forward through this intermediate stage, to the time
when there should be a perfect sympathy between Dora and me, and when I
should have 'formed her mind' to my entire satisfaction, I persevered,
even for months. Finding at last, however, that, although I had been
all this time a very porcupine or hedgehog, bristling all over with
determination, I had effected nothing, it began to occur to me that
perhaps Dora's mind was already formed.

On further consideration this appeared so likely, that I abandoned
my scheme, which had had a more promising appearance in words than in
action; resolving henceforth to be satisfied with my child-wife, and to
try to change her into nothing else by any process. I was heartily tired
of being sagacious and prudent by myself, and of seeing my darling under
restraint; so I bought a pretty pair of ear-rings for her, and a collar
for Jip, and went home one day to make myself agreeable.

Dora was delighted with the little presents, and kissed me joyfully; but
there was a shadow between us, however slight, and I had made up my mind
that it should not be there. If there must be such a shadow anywhere, I
would keep it for the future in my own breast.

I sat down by my wife on the sofa, and put the ear-rings in her ears;
and then I told her that I feared we had not been quite as good company
lately, as we used to be, and that the fault was mine. Which I sincerely
felt, and which indeed it was.

'The truth is, Dora, my life,' I said; 'I have been trying to be wise.'

'And to make me wise too,' said Dora, timidly. 'Haven't you, Doady?'

I nodded assent to the pretty inquiry of the raised eyebrows, and kissed
the parted lips.

'It's of not a bit of use,' said Dora, shaking her head, until the
ear-rings rang again. 'You know what a little thing I am, and what I
wanted you to call me from the first. If you can't do so, I am afraid
you'll never like me. Are you sure you don't think, sometimes, it would
have been better to have--'

'Done what, my dear?' For she made no effort to proceed.

'Nothing!' said Dora.

'Nothing?' I repeated.

She put her arms round my neck, and laughed, and called herself by her
favourite name of a goose, and hid her face on my shoulder in such a
profusion of curls that it was quite a task to clear them away and see
it.

'Don't I think it would have been better to have done nothing, than to
have tried to form my little wife's mind?' said I, laughing at myself.
'Is that the question? Yes, indeed, I do.'

'Is that what you have been trying?' cried Dora. 'Oh what a shocking
boy!'

'But I shall never try any more,' said I. 'For I love her dearly as she
is.'

'Without a story--really?' inquired Dora, creeping closer to me.

'Why should I seek to change,' said I, 'what has been so precious to me
for so long! You never can show better than as your own natural self, my
sweet Dora; and we'll try no conceited experiments, but go back to our
old way, and be happy.'

'And be happy!' returned Dora. 'Yes! All day! And you won't mind things
going a tiny morsel wrong, sometimes?'

'No, no,' said I. 'We must do the best we can.'

'And you won't tell me, any more, that we make other people bad,' coaxed
Dora; 'will you? Because you know it's so dreadfully cross!'

'No, no,' said I.

'It's better for me to be stupid than uncomfortable, isn't it?' said
Dora.

'Better to be naturally Dora than anything else in the world.'

'In the world! Ah, Doady, it's a large place!'

She shook her head, turned her delighted bright eyes up to mine, kissed
me, broke into a merry laugh, and sprang away to put on Jip's new
collar.

So ended my last attempt to make any change in Dora. I had been unhappy
in trying it; I could not endure my own solitary wisdom; I could not
reconcile it with her former appeal to me as my child-wife. I resolved
to do what I could, in a quiet way, to improve our proceedings myself,
but I foresaw that my utmost would be very little, or I must degenerate
into the spider again, and be for ever lying in wait.

And the shadow I have mentioned, that was not to be between us any more,
but was to rest wholly on my own heart? How did that fall?

The old unhappy feeling pervaded my life. It was deepened, if it were
changed at all; but it was as undefined as ever, and addressed me like
a strain of sorrowful music faintly heard in the night. I loved my wife
dearly, and I was happy; but the happiness I had vaguely anticipated,
once, was not the happiness I enjoyed, and there was always something
wanting.

In fulfilment of the compact I have made with myself, to reflect my mind
on this paper, I again examine it, closely, and bring its secrets to the
light. What I missed, I still regarded--I always regarded--as something
that had been a dream of my youthful fancy; that was incapable of
realization; that I was now discovering to be so, with some natural
pain, as all men did. But that it would have been better for me if my
wife could have helped me more, and shared the many thoughts in which I
had no partner; and that this might have been; I knew.

Between these two irreconcilable conclusions: the one, that what I felt
was general and unavoidable; the other, that it was particular to me,
and might have been different: I balanced curiously, with no distinct
sense of their opposition to each other. When I thought of the airy
dreams of youth that are incapable of realization, I thought of the
better state preceding manhood that I had outgrown; and then the
contented days with Agnes, in the dear old house, arose before me, like
spectres of the dead, that might have some renewal in another world, but
never more could be reanimated here.

Sometimes, the speculation came into my thoughts, What might have
happened, or what would have happened, if Dora and I had never known
each other? But she was so incorporated with my existence, that it
was the idlest of all fancies, and would soon rise out of my reach and
sight, like gossamer floating in the air.

I always loved her. What I am describing, slumbered, and half awoke, and
slept again, in the innermost recesses of my mind. There was no evidence
of it in me; I know of no influence it had in anything I said or did. I
bore the weight of all our little cares, and all my projects; Dora held
the pens; and we both felt that our shares were adjusted as the case
required. She was truly fond of me, and proud of me; and when Agnes
wrote a few earnest words in her letters to Dora, of the pride and
interest with which my old friends heard of my growing reputation, and
read my book as if they heard me speaking its contents, Dora read them
out to me with tears of joy in her bright eyes, and said I was a dear
old clever, famous boy.

'The first mistaken impulse of an undisciplined heart.' Those words of
Mrs. Strong's were constantly recurring to me, at this time; were almost
always present to my mind. I awoke with them, often, in the night; I
remember to have even read them, in dreams, inscribed upon the walls
of houses. For I knew, now, that my own heart was undisciplined when it
first loved Dora; and that if it had been disciplined, it never
could have felt, when we were married, what it had felt in its secret
experience.

'There can be no disparity in marriage, like unsuitability of mind and
purpose.' Those words I remembered too. I had endeavoured to adapt
Dora to myself, and found it impracticable. It remained for me to adapt
myself to Dora; to share with her what I could, and be happy; to bear
on my own shoulders what I must, and be happy still. This was the
discipline to which I tried to bring my heart, when I began to think.
It made my second year much happier than my first; and, what was better
still, made Dora's life all sunshine.

But, as that year wore on, Dora was not strong. I had hoped that lighter
hands than mine would help to mould her character, and that a baby-smile
upon her breast might change my child-wife to a woman. It was not to be.
The spirit fluttered for a moment on the threshold of its little prison,
and, unconscious of captivity, took wing.

'When I can run about again, as I used to do, aunt,' said Dora, 'I shall
make Jip race. He is getting quite slow and lazy.'

'I suspect, my dear,' said my aunt quietly working by her side, 'he has
a worse disorder than that. Age, Dora.'

'Do you think he is old?' said Dora, astonished. 'Oh, how strange it
seems that Jip should be old!'

'It's a complaint we are all liable to, Little One, as we get on in
life,' said my aunt, cheerfully; 'I don't feel more free from it than I
used to be, I assure you.'

'But Jip,' said Dora, looking at him with compassion, 'even little Jip!
Oh, poor fellow!'

'I dare say he'll last a long time yet, Blossom,' said my aunt, patting
Dora on the cheek, as she leaned out of her couch to look at Jip, who
responded by standing on his hind legs, and baulking himself in various
asthmatic attempts to scramble up by the head and shoulders. 'He must
have a piece of flannel in his house this winter, and I shouldn't wonder
if he came out quite fresh again, with the flowers in the spring. Bless
the little dog!' exclaimed my aunt, 'if he had as many lives as a cat,
and was on the point of losing 'em all, he'd bark at me with his last
breath, I believe!'

Dora had helped him up on the sofa; where he really was defying my aunt
to such a furious extent, that he couldn't keep straight, but barked
himself sideways. The more my aunt looked at him, the more he reproached
her; for she had lately taken to spectacles, and for some inscrutable
reason he considered the glasses personal.

Dora made him lie down by her, with a good deal of persuasion; and when
he was quiet, drew one of his long ears through and through her hand,
repeating thoughtfully, 'Even little Jip! Oh, poor fellow!'

'His lungs are good enough,' said my aunt, gaily, 'and his dislikes are
not at all feeble. He has a good many years before him, no doubt. But if
you want a dog to race with, Little Blossom, he has lived too well for
that, and I'll give you one.'

'Thank you, aunt,' said Dora, faintly. 'But don't, please!'

'No?' said my aunt, taking off her spectacles.

'I couldn't have any other dog but Jip,' said Dora. 'It would be so
unkind to Jip! Besides, I couldn't be such friends with any other dog
but Jip; because he wouldn't have known me before I was married,
and wouldn't have barked at Doady when he first came to our house. I
couldn't care for any other dog but Jip, I am afraid, aunt.'

'To be sure!' said my aunt, patting her cheek again. 'You are right.'

'You are not offended,' said Dora. 'Are you?'

'Why, what a sensitive pet it is!' cried my aunt, bending over her
affectionately. 'To think that I could be offended!'

'No, no, I didn't really think so,' returned Dora; 'but I am a little
tired, and it made me silly for a moment--I am always a silly little
thing, you know, but it made me more silly--to talk about Jip. He
has known me in all that has happened to me, haven't you, Jip? And I
couldn't bear to slight him, because he was a little altered--could I,
Jip?'

Jip nestled closer to his mistress, and lazily licked her hand.

'You are not so old, Jip, are you, that you'll leave your mistress yet?'
said Dora. 'We may keep one another company a little longer!'

My pretty Dora! When she came down to dinner on the ensuing Sunday, and
was so glad to see old Traddles (who always dined with us on Sunday), we
thought she would be 'running about as she used to do', in a few days.
But they said, wait a few days more; and then, wait a few days more; and
still she neither ran nor walked. She looked very pretty, and was very
merry; but the little feet that used to be so nimble when they danced
round Jip, were dull and motionless.

I began to carry her downstairs every morning, and upstairs every night.
She would clasp me round the neck and laugh, the while, as if I did it
for a wager. Jip would bark and caper round us, and go on before, and
look back on the landing, breathing short, to see that we were coming.
My aunt, the best and most cheerful of nurses, would trudge after us, a
moving mass of shawls and pillows. Mr. Dick would not have relinquished
his post of candle-bearer to anyone alive. Traddles would be often at
the bottom of the staircase, looking on, and taking charge of sportive
messages from Dora to the dearest girl in the world. We made quite a gay
procession of it, and my child-wife was the gayest there.

But, sometimes, when I took her up, and felt that she was lighter in
my arms, a dead blank feeling came upon me, as if I were approaching
to some frozen region yet unseen, that numbed my life. I avoided the
recognition of this feeling by any name, or by any communing with
myself; until one night, when it was very strong upon me, and my aunt
had left her with a parting cry of 'Good night, Little Blossom,' I sat
down at my desk alone, and tried to think, Oh what a fatal name it was,
and how the blossom withered in its bloom upon the tree!

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Domestic. David has published his first book, which is a success. David and Dora have been married for a year and a half, and they have given up on housekeeping. They have another servant who cheats them and is eventually transported as a convict to Australia. David worries that Dora's lax housekeeping actively encourages servants to turn to crime. For some time, he tries to form her mind by offering her scraps of information, but this only makes her depressed and nervous. He decides to love her as she is, which makes her happier. However, he is still conscious of something missing in their life together. He recognizes that Annie Strong's words, "the first mistaken impulse of an undisciplined heart," apply to his falling in love with Dora. David hopes that having a child might make Dora mature. She falls pregnant, but the baby either miscarries or is born dead. Dora becomes ill, and loses the ability to walk. David has to carry her up and down the stairs