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.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 any one 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 cried to think, Oh what a fatal name it was, and how the blossom withered in its bloom upon the treelCHAPTER XLIXI An involved in mysteryI RECEIVED ONE MORNING BY THE POST, THE FOLLOWING letter, dated Canterbury, and addressed to me at Doctors’ Commons, which I read with some surprise:“MY DEAR SIR,“Circumstances beyond my individual control have, for a considerable lapse of time, effected a severance of that intimacy, which, in the limited opportunities conceded to me in the midst of my professional duties, of contemplating the scenes and events of the past, tinged by the prismatic hues of memory, has ever afforded me, as it ever must continue to afford, gratifying emotions of no common description.This fact, my dear sir, combined with the distinguished elevation to which your talents have raised you, deters me from presuming to aspire to the liberty of addressing the companion of my youth by the familiar appellation of Copperfield! It is sufficient to know that the name to which I do myself the honour to refer, will ever be treasured among the muniments of our house (I allude to the archives connected with our former lodgers, preserved by Mrs.Micawber), with sentiments of personal esteem amounting to affection.“It is not for one situated, through his original errors and a fortuitous combination of unpropitious events, as is the foundered Bark (if he may be allowed to assume so maritime a denomination), who now takes up the pen to address you—it is not, I repeat, for one so circumstanced, to adopt the language of compliment, or of congratulation.That, he leaves to abler and to purer hands.“If your more important avocations should admit of your ever tracing these imperfect characters thus far—which may be, or may not be, as circumstances arise—you will naturally inquire by what object am I influenced, then, in inditing the present missive? Allow me to say that I fully defer to the reasonable character of that inquiry, and proceed to develop it, premising that it is not an object of a pecuniary nature.“Without more directly referring to any latent ability that may possibly exist on my part, of wielding the thunderbolt, or directing the devouring and avenging flame in any quarter, I may be permitted to observe, in passing, that my brightest visions are for ever dispelled—that my peace is shattered and my power of enjoyment destroyed—that my heart is no longer in the right place—and that I no more walk erect before my fellow man.The canker is in the flower.The cup is bitter to the brim.The worm is at his work, and will soon dispose of his victim.The sooner the better.But I will not digress.“Placed in a mental position of peculiar painfulness, beyond the assuaging reach even of Mrs.Micawber’s influence, though exercised in the tripartite character of woman, wife, and mother, it is my intention to fly from myself for a short period, and devote a respite of eight-and-forty hours to revisiting some metropolitan scenes of past enjoyment.Among other havens of domestic tranquility and peace of mind, my feet will naturally tend towards the King’s Bench Prison.In stating that I shall be (D.V.) on the outside of the south wall of that place of incarceration on civil process, the day after tomorrow, at seven in the evening, precisely, my object in this epistolary communication is accomplished.“I do not feel warranted in soliciting my former friend Mr.Copperfield, or my former friend Mr.Thomas Traddles of the Inner Temple, if that gentleman is still existent and forthcoming, to condescend to meet me, and renew (so far as may be) our past relations of the olden time.I confine myself to throwing out the observation, that, at the hour and place I have indicated, may be found such ruined vestiges as yet “Remain,”Of“A”Fallen Tower,“WILKINS MICAWBER.“P.S.It may be advisable to superadd, to the above, the statement that Mrs.Micawber is not in confidential possession of my intentions.”I read the letter over several times.Making due allowance for Mr
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