s just the same, 'wearing away his life with
kiender no care nohow for 't; but never murmuring, and liked by all'.

I asked him what he thought Ham's state of mind was, in reference to the
cause of their misfortunes? Whether he believed it was dangerous? What
he supposed, for example, Ham would do, if he and Steerforth ever should
encounter?

'I doen't know, sir,' he replied. 'I have thowt of it oftentimes, but I
can't awize myself of it, no matters.'

I recalled to his remembrance the morning after her departure, when we
were all three on the beach. 'Do you recollect,' said I, 'a certain wild
way in which he looked out to sea, and spoke about "the end of it"?'

'Sure I do!' said he.

'What do you suppose he meant?'

'Mas'r Davy,' he replied, 'I've put the question to myself a mort o'
times, and never found no answer. And theer's one curious thing--that,
though he is so pleasant, I wouldn't fare to feel comfortable to try and
get his mind upon 't. He never said a wured to me as warn't as dootiful
as dootiful could be, and it ain't likely as he'd begin to speak any
other ways now; but it's fur from being fleet water in his mind, where
them thowts lays. It's deep, sir, and I can't see down.'

'You are right,' said I, 'and that has sometimes made me anxious.'

'And me too, Mas'r Davy,' he rejoined. 'Even more so, I do assure you,
than his ventersome ways, though both belongs to the alteration in him.
I doen't know as he'd do violence under any circumstances, but I hope as
them two may be kep asunders.'

We had come, through Temple Bar, into the city. Conversing no more now,
and walking at my side, he yielded himself up to the one aim of his
devoted life, and went on, with that hushed concentration of his
faculties which would have made his figure solitary in a multitude.
We were not far from Blackfriars Bridge, when he turned his head and
pointed to a solitary female figure flitting along the opposite side of
the street. I knew it, readily, to be the figure that we sought.

We crossed the road, and were pressing on towards her, when it occurred
to me that she might be more disposed to feel a woman's interest in the
lost girl, if we spoke to her in a quieter place, aloof from the crowd,
and where we should be less observed. I advised my companion, therefore,
that we should not address her yet, but follow her; consulting in this,
likewise, an indistinct desire I had, to know where she went.

He acquiescing, we fo