ded to make
off somewhere, "which I left it to yourself, Pip."

"I would rather you told, Joe."

"Pip's a gentleman of fortun' then," said Joe, "and God bless him in
it!"

Biddy dropped her work, and looked at me. Joe held his knees and looked
at me. I looked at both of them. After a pause, they both heartily
congratulated me; but there was a certain touch of sadness in their
congratulations that I rather resented.

I took it upon myself to impress Biddy (and through Biddy, Joe) with the
grave obligation I considered my friends under, to know nothing and say
nothing about the maker of my fortune. It would all come out in good
time, I observed, and in the meanwhile nothing was to be said, save
that I had come into great expectations from a mysterious patron. Biddy
nodded her head thoughtfully at the fire as she took up her work again,
and said she would be very particular; and Joe, still detaining his
knees, said, "Ay, ay, I'll be ekervally partickler, Pip;" and then they
congratulated me again, and went on to express so much wonder at the
notion of my being a gentleman that I didn't half like it.

Infinite pains were then taken by Biddy to convey to my sister some idea
of what had happened. To the best of my belief, those efforts entirely
failed. She laughed and nodded her head a great many times, and even
repeated after Biddy, the words "Pip" and "Property." But I doubt if
they had more meaning in them than an election cry, and I cannot suggest
a darker picture of her state of mind.

I never could have believed it without experience, but as Joe and
Biddy became more at their cheerful ease again, I became quite gloomy.
Dissatisfied with my fortune, of course I could not be; but it is
possible that I may have been, without quite knowing it, dissatisfied
with myself.

Any how, I sat with my elbow on my knee and my face upon my hand,
looking into the fire, as those two talked about my going away, and
about what they should do without me, and all that. And whenever I
caught one of them looking at me, though never so pleasantly (and they
often looked at me,--particularly Biddy), I felt offended: as if they
were expressing some mistrust of me. Though Heaven knows they never did
by word or sign.

At those times I would get up and look out at the door; for our kitchen
door opened at once upon the night, and stood open on summer evenings to
air the room. The very stars to which I then raised my eyes, I am afraid
I too