what I'd took it, I believe the t'other wureld wouldn't hold me! I
believe I must come back!'

He rose, and I rose too; we grasped each other by the hand again, before
going out.

'I'd go ten thousand mile,' he said, 'I'd go till I dropped dead, to lay
that money down afore him. If I do that, and find my Em'ly, I'm content.
If I doen't find her, maybe she'll come to hear, sometime, as her loving
uncle only ended his search for her when he ended his life; and if I
know her, even that will turn her home at last!'

As he went out into the rigorous night, I saw the lonely figure flit
away before us. I turned him hastily on some pretence, and held him in
conversation until it was gone.

He spoke of a traveller's house on the Dover Road, where he knew he
could find a clean, plain lodging for the night. I went with him over
Westminster Bridge, and parted from him on the Surrey shore. Everything
seemed, to my imagination, to be hushed in reverence for him, as he
resumed his solitary journey through the snow.

I returned to the inn yard, and, impressed by my remembrance of the
face, looked awfully around for it. It was not there. The snow had
covered our late footprints; my new track was the only one to be seen;
and even that began to die away (it snowed so fast) as I looked back
over my shoulder.

CHAPTER 41. DORA'S AUNTS

At last, an answer came from the two old ladies. They presented their
compliments to Mr. Copperfield, and informed him that they had given his
letter their best consideration, 'with a view to the happiness of
both parties'--which I thought rather an alarming expression, not
only because of the use they had made of it in relation to the family
difference before-mentioned, but because I had (and have all my life)
observed that conventional phrases are a sort of fireworks, easily let
off, and liable to take a great variety of shapes and colours not at
all suggested by their original form. The Misses Spenlow added that they
begged to forbear expressing, 'through the medium of correspondence', an
opinion on the subject of Mr. Copperfield's communication; but that if
Mr. Copperfield would do them the favour to call, upon a certain day
(accompanied, if he thought proper, by a confidential friend), they
would be happy to hold some conversation on the subject.

To this favour, Mr. Copperfield immediately replied, with his respectful
compliments, that he would have the honour of waiting on the Misses
Sp