enlow, at the time appointed; accompanied, in accordance with their
kind permission, by his friend Mr. Thomas Traddles of the Inner Temple.
Having dispatched which missive, Mr. Copperfield fell into a condition
of strong nervous agitation; and so remained until the day arrived.

It was a great augmentation of my uneasiness to be bereaved, at this
eventful crisis, of the inestimable services of Miss Mills. But Mr.
Mills, who was always doing something or other to annoy me--or I felt
as if he were, which was the same thing--had brought his conduct to a
climax, by taking it into his head that he would go to India. Why should
he go to India, except to harass me? To be sure he had nothing to do
with any other part of the world, and had a good deal to do with that
part; being entirely in the India trade, whatever that was (I had
floating dreams myself concerning golden shawls and elephants' teeth);
having been at Calcutta in his youth; and designing now to go out there
again, in the capacity of resident partner. But this was nothing to me.
However, it was so much to him that for India he was bound, and
Julia with him; and Julia went into the country to take leave of
her relations; and the house was put into a perfect suit of bills,
announcing that it was to be let or sold, and that the furniture (Mangle
and all) was to be taken at a valuation. So, here was another earthquake
of which I became the sport, before I had recovered from the shock of
its predecessor!

I was in several minds how to dress myself on the important day; being
divided between my desire to appear to advantage, and my apprehensions
of putting on anything that might impair my severely practical character
in the eyes of the Misses Spenlow. I endeavoured to hit a happy medium
between these two extremes; my aunt approved the result; and Mr. Dick
threw one of his shoes after Traddles and me, for luck, as we went
downstairs.

Excellent fellow as I knew Traddles to be, and warmly attached to him as
I was, I could not help wishing, on that delicate occasion, that he had
never contracted the habit of brushing his hair so very upright. It
gave him a surprised look--not to say a hearth-broomy kind of
expression--which, my apprehensions whispered, might be fatal to us.

I took the liberty of mentioning it to Traddles, as we were walking to
Putney; and saying that if he WOULD smooth it down a little--

'My dear Copperfield,' said Traddles, lifting off his hat, and r