all.

In this trouble Agnes was his true friend. He had written her already of
his love for Dora and she had advised him. Through her now he found
employment as secretary to his old schoolmaster, Doctor Strong, who had
given up the school at Dover and had moved to London. He told Dora, of
course, all about his changed prospects, but Dora was like a little
butterfly who knew only how to fly about among flowers; she hardly knew
what poverty meant, and thought he was scolding when he told her.

David worked hard in the morning at Doctor Strong's, in the afternoons
at the law office, and in the evenings he studied shorthand so he might
come to be a newspaper reporter. And all this while he wrote to Dora
every day.

It was one of these letters that at last betrayed their secret. Dora
dropped it from her pocket and Miss Murdstone picked it up. She showed
it to Dora's father and he sent at once for David and told him angrily
that he could never marry his child and that he must not see Dora any
more. And David went home disconsolate.

This might have ended their engagement for ever, but that same day
Dora's father dropped dead of heart-disease. Instead of being rich he
was found to have left no money at all, and Dora was taken to live with
two aunts on the outskirts of London. David did not know what was best
to do now, so he went to Dover to ask Agnes's advice.

He was shocked at the changes he found there. Her father looked ill and
scarcely seemed himself. Uriah Heep, his new partner, with his ugly,
fawning way and clammy hands, was living in their house and eating with
them at their table. He had obtained more and more power over Mr.
Wickfield and gloried in it. And the other seemed no longer to dare to
oppose Uriah in anything.

But in spite of all this, Agnes talked bravely and cheerfully with
David. Under her direction, he wrote a letter to Dora's aunts, declaring
his love and asking permission to call, and they, pleased with his
frankness, gave their permission. Before the year was out David began to
earn money with his shorthand, reporting speeches in Parliament for a
newspaper. He had discovered besides that he could write stories that
the magazines were glad to buy. So one day David married Dora and they
went to housekeeping in a tiny house of their own.

Life seemed very sweet to them both, though Dora, while she was the most
loving little wife in the world, knew no more about housekeeping than a
bird. The s