y make a lay-figure of my dear. They are always sending
for her to come and try something on. We can't be happy together for
five minutes in the evening, but some intrusive female knocks at the
door, and says, 'Oh, if you please, Miss Dora, would you step upstairs!'

Miss Clarissa and my aunt roam all over London, to find out articles of
furniture for Dora and me to look at. It would be better for them to buy
the goods at once, without this ceremony of inspection; for, when we go
to see a kitchen fender and meat-screen, Dora sees a Chinese house for
Jip, with little bells on the top, and prefers that. And it takes a
long time to accustom Jip to his new residence, after we have bought it;
whenever he goes in or out, he makes all the little bells ring, and is
horribly frightened.

Peggotty comes up to make herself useful, and falls to work immediately.
Her department appears to be, to clean everything over and over again.
She rubs everything that can be rubbed, until it shines, like her own
honest forehead, with perpetual friction. And now it is, that I begin to
see her solitary brother passing through the dark streets at night, and
looking, as he goes, among the wandering faces. I never speak to him at
such an hour. I know too well, as his grave figure passes onward, what
he seeks, and what he dreads.

Why does Traddles look so important when he calls upon me this afternoon
in the Commons--where I still occasionally attend, for form's sake, when
I have time? The realization of my boyish day-dreams is at hand. I am
going to take out the licence.

It is a little document to do so much; and Traddles contemplates it,
as it lies upon my desk, half in admiration, half in awe. There are the
names, in the sweet old visionary connexion, David Copperfield and Dora
Spenlow; and there, in the corner, is that Parental Institution,
the Stamp Office, which is so benignantly interested in the various
transactions of human life, looking down upon our Union; and there is
the Archbishop of Canterbury invoking a blessing on us in print, and
doing it as cheap as could possibly be expected.

Nevertheless, I am in a dream, a flustered, happy, hurried dream. I
can't believe that it is going to be; and yet I can't believe but that
everyone I pass in the street, must have some kind of perception, that I
am to be married the day after tomorrow. The Surrogate knows me, when
I go down to be sworn; and disposes of me easily, as if there were a
M