ion, and my aunt proposes that I
should be a proctor in Doctors' Commons. I learn that the proctors are a
sort of solicitors, and that the Doctors' Commons is a faded court held
near St. Paul's Churchyard, where people's marriages and wills are
disposed of and disputes about ships and boats are settled.

So I am articled, and later, when my aunt has lost her money, through no
fault of her own, but through the rascality of Uriah Heep, and I seek
Mr. Spenlow to know if it is possible for my articles to be cancelled,
it is, I am assured, Mr. Jorkins who is inexorable.

"If it had been my lot to have my hands unfettered, if I had not a
partner--Mr. Jorkins," says Mr. Spenlow. "But I know my partner,
Copperfield. Mr. Jorkins is _not_ a man to respond to a proposition of
this peculiar nature. Mr. Jorkins is very difficult to move from the
beaten track."

The years pass.

I have come legally to man's estate. I have attained the dignity of
twenty-one. Let me think what I have achieved.

Determined to do something to bring in money, I have mastered the savage
mystery of shorthand, and make a respectable income by reporting the
debates in Parliament for a morning newspaper. Night after night I
record predictions that never come to pass, professions that are never
fulfilled, explanations that are only meant to mystify.

I have come out in another way. I have taken, with fear and trembling,
to authorship. I wrote a little something in secret, and sent it to a
magazine, and it was published. Since then I have taken heart to write a
good many trifling pieces.

My record is nearly finished.

Peggotty, a widow, is with my aunt, and Mr. Dick is in the room.

"Goodness me!" said my aunt, "who's this you're bringing home?"

"Agnes," said I.

We were to be married within a fortnight. It was not till I had told
Agnes of my love that I learnt from her, as she laid her gentle hands
upon my shoulders and looked calmly in my face, that she had loved me
all my life.

Let me look back once more, for the last time, before I close these
leaves.

I have advanced in fame and fortune. I have been married ten years, and
I see my children playing in the room.

Here is my aunt, in stronger spectacles, an old woman of fourscore years
and more, but upright yet, and godmother to a real, living Betsey
Trotwood. Always with her, here comes Peggotty, my good old nurse,
likewise in spectacles. A newspaper from Australia tells me that Mr.
Mica