g your pardon, miss,' he said, awakening from his abstraction,
'but, however submissive to you, I have my position, though a servant.
Mr. Copperfield and you, miss, are different people. If Mr. Copperfield
wishes to know anything from me, I take the liberty of reminding Mr.
Copperfield that he can put a question to me. I have a character to
maintain.'

After a momentary struggle with myself, I turned my eyes upon him, and
said, 'You have heard my question. Consider it addressed to yourself, if
you choose. What answer do you make?'

'Sir,' he rejoined, with an occasional separation and reunion of those
delicate tips, 'my answer must be qualified; because, to betray Mr.
james's confidence to his mother, and to betray it to you, are two
different actions. It is not probable, I consider, that Mr. James would
encourage the receipt of letters likely to increase low spirits and
unpleasantness; but further than that, sir, I should wish to avoid
going.'

'Is that all?' inquired Miss Dartle of me.

I indicated that I had nothing more to say. 'Except,' I added, as I
saw him moving off, 'that I understand this fellow's part in the wicked
story, and that, as I shall make it known to the honest man who has been
her father from her childhood, I would recommend him to avoid going too
much into public.'

He had stopped the moment I began, and had listened with his usual
repose of manner.

'Thank you, sir. But you'll excuse me if I say, sir, that there are
neither slaves nor slave-drivers in this country, and that people are
not allowed to take the law into their own hands. If they do, it is
more to their own peril, I believe, than to other people's. Consequently
speaking, I am not at all afraid of going wherever I may wish, sir.'

With that, he made a polite bow; and, with another to Miss Dartle, went
away through the arch in the wall of holly by which he had come. Miss
Dartle and I regarded each other for a little while in silence; her
manner being exactly what it was, when she had produced the man.

'He says besides,' she observed, with a slow curling of her lip, 'that
his master, as he hears, is coasting Spain; and this done, is away
to gratify his seafaring tastes till he is weary. But this is of no
interest to you. Between these two proud persons, mother and son, there
is a wider breach than before, and little hope of its healing, for they
are one at heart, and time makes each more obstinate and imperious.
Neither is this