me half-dozen of the great
urns, and commanding a peep of an old secluded garden belonging to the
Doctor, where the peaches were ripening on the sunny south wall. There
were two great aloes, in tubs, on the turf outside the windows; the
broad hard leaves of which plant (looking as if they were made of
painted tin) have ever since, by association, been symbolical to me
of silence and retirement. About five-and-twenty boys were studiously
engaged at their books when we went in, but they rose to give the Doctor
good morning, and remained standing when they saw Mr. Wickfield and me.

'A new boy, young gentlemen,' said the Doctor; 'Trotwood Copperfield.'

One Adams, who was the head-boy, then stepped out of his place and
welcomed me. He looked like a young clergyman, in his white cravat, but
he was very affable and good-humoured; and he showed me my place, and
presented me to the masters, in a gentlemanly way that would have put me
at my ease, if anything could.

It seemed to me so long, however, since I had been among such boys,
or among any companions of my own age, except Mick Walker and Mealy
Potatoes, that I felt as strange as ever I have done in my life. I was
so conscious of having passed through scenes of which they could have
no knowledge, and of having acquired experiences foreign to my age,
appearance, and condition as one of them, that I half believed it was an
imposture to come there as an ordinary little schoolboy. I had become,
in the Murdstone and Grinby time, however short or long it may have
been, so unused to the sports and games of boys, that I knew I was
awkward and inexperienced in the commonest things belonging to them.
Whatever I had learnt, had so slipped away from me in the sordid cares
of my life from day to night, that now, when I was examined about what
I knew, I knew nothing, and was put into the lowest form of the school.
But, troubled as I was, by my want of boyish skill, and of book-learning
too, I was made infinitely more uncomfortable by the consideration,
that, in what I did know, I was much farther removed from my companions
than in what I did not. My mind ran upon what they would think, if they
knew of my familiar acquaintance with the King's Bench Prison? Was there
anything about me which would reveal my proceedings in connexion with
the Micawber family--all those pawnings, and sellings, and suppers--in
spite of myself? Suppose some of the boys had seen me coming through
Canterbury, w