ss of T. Traddles,
Esquire, of the Inner Temple.' It ran thus:--

'MY DEAR COPPERFIELD,

'You may possibly not be unprepared to receive the intimation that
something has turned up. I may have mentioned to you on a former
occasion that I was in expectation of such an event.

'I am about to establish myself in one of the provincial towns of our
favoured island (where the society may be described as a happy admixture
of the agricultural and the clerical), in immediate connexion with
one of the learned professions. Mrs. Micawber and our offspring will
accompany me. Our ashes, at a future period, will probably be found
commingled in the cemetery attached to a venerable pile, for which the
spot to which I refer has acquired a reputation, shall I say from China
to Peru?

'In bidding adieu to the modern Babylon, where we have undergone many
vicissitudes, I trust not ignobly, Mrs. Micawber and myself cannot
disguise from our minds that we part, it may be for years and it may be
for ever, with an individual linked by strong associations to the altar
of our domestic life. If, on the eve of such a departure, you will
accompany our mutual friend, Mr. Thomas Traddles, to our present abode,
and there reciprocate the wishes natural to the occasion, you will
confer a Boon

'On
'One
'Who
'Is
'Ever yours,
'WILKINS MICAWBER.'

I was glad to find that Mr. Micawber had got rid of his dust and ashes,
and that something really had turned up at last. Learning from Traddles
that the invitation referred to the evening then wearing away, I
expressed my readiness to do honour to it; and we went off together to
the lodging which Mr. Micawber occupied as Mr. Mortimer, and which was
situated near the top of the Gray's Inn Road.

The resources of this lodging were so limited, that we found the twins,
now some eight or nine years old, reposing in a turn-up bedstead in
the family sitting-room, where Mr. Micawber had prepared, in a
wash-hand-stand jug, what he called 'a Brew' of the agreeable beverage
for which he was famous. I had the pleasure, on this occasion, of
renewing the acquaintance of Master Micawber, whom I found a promising
boy of about twelve or thirteen, very subject to that restlessness of
limb which is not an unfrequent phenomenon in youths of his age. I also
be