subject. All I desire, Mr.
Copperfield, is, that it should be forgotten. All you have got to do,
Mr. Copperfield, is to forget it.'

All! In the note I wrote to Miss Mills, I bitterly quoted this
sentiment. All I had to do, I said, with gloomy sarcasm, was to forget
Dora. That was all, and what was that! I entreated Miss Mills to see
me, that evening. If it could not be done with Mr. Mills's sanction
and concurrence, I besought a clandestine interview in the back kitchen
where the Mangle was. I informed her that my reason was tottering on
its throne, and only she, Miss Mills, could prevent its being deposed.
I signed myself, hers distractedly; and I couldn't help feeling, while
I read this composition over, before sending it by a porter, that it was
something in the style of Mr. Micawber.

However, I sent it. At night I repaired to Miss Mills's street, and
walked up and down, until I was stealthily fetched in by Miss Mills's
maid, and taken the area way to the back kitchen. I have since seen
reason to believe that there was nothing on earth to prevent my going in
at the front door, and being shown up into the drawing-room, except Miss
Mills's love of the romantic and mysterious.

In the back kitchen, I raved as became me. I went there, I suppose,
to make a fool of myself, and I am quite sure I did it. Miss Mills had
received a hasty note from Dora, telling her that all was discovered,
and saying. 'Oh pray come to me, Julia, do, do!' But Miss Mills,
mistrusting the acceptability of her presence to the higher powers, had
not yet gone; and we were all benighted in the Desert of Sahara.

Miss Mills had a wonderful flow of words, and liked to pour them out. I
could not help feeling, though she mingled her tears with mine, that she
had a dreadful luxury in our afflictions. She petted them, as I may say,
and made the most of them. A deep gulf, she observed, had opened between
Dora and me, and Love could only span it with its rainbow. Love must
suffer in this stern world; it ever had been so, it ever would be so. No
matter, Miss Mills remarked. Hearts confined by cobwebs would burst at
last, and then Love was avenged.

This was small consolation, but Miss Mills wouldn't encourage fallacious
hopes. She made me much more wretched than I was before, and I felt (and
told her with the deepest gratitude) that she was indeed a friend. We
resolved that she should go to Dora the first thing in the morning,
and find some means of as