ing them enjoy the ride. I was not angry
with them; I was more afraid of them, as if I were cast away among
creatures with whom I had no community of nature. They were very
cheerful. The old man sat in front to drive, and the two young people
sat behind him, and whenever he spoke to them leaned forward, the one on
one side of his chubby face and the other on the other, and made a great
deal of him. They would have talked to me too, but I held back, and
moped in my corner; scared by their love-making and hilarity, though
it was far from boisterous, and almost wondering that no judgement came
upon them for their hardness of heart.

So, when they stopped to bait the horse, and ate and drank and enjoyed
themselves, I could touch nothing that they touched, but kept my fast
unbroken. So, when we reached home, I dropped out of the chaise behind,
as quickly as possible, that I might not be in their company before
those solemn windows, looking blindly on me like closed eyes once
bright. And oh, how little need I had had to think what would move me to
tears when I came back--seeing the window of my mother's room, and next
it that which, in the better time, was mine!

I was in Peggotty's arms before I got to the door, and she took me into
the house. Her grief burst out when she first saw me; but she controlled
it soon, and spoke in whispers, and walked softly, as if the dead could
be disturbed. She had not been in bed, I found, for a long time. She
sat up at night still, and watched. As long as her poor dear pretty was
above the ground, she said, she would never desert her.

Mr. Murdstone took no heed of me when I went into the parlour where he
was, but sat by the fireside, weeping silently, and pondering in his
elbow-chair. Miss Murdstone, who was busy at her writing-desk, which
was covered with letters and papers, gave me her cold finger-nails, and
asked me, in an iron whisper, if I had been measured for my mourning.

I said: 'Yes.'

'And your shirts,' said Miss Murdstone; 'have you brought 'em home?'

'Yes, ma'am. I have brought home all my clothes.'

This was all the consolation that her firmness administered to me. I do
not doubt that she had a choice pleasure in exhibiting what she called
her self-command, and her firmness, and her strength of mind, and
her common sense, and the whole diabolical catalogue of her unamiable
qualities, on such an occasion. She was particularly proud of her turn
for business; and she show