Great Expectations

f their simple meaning was not very correct, for I read `wife of the Above' as a complimentary reference to my father's exaltation to a better world; and

that I supposed my declaration that I was to `walk in the same all the days of my life,' laid me under an obligation always to go thro

to want an extra boy to frighten birds, or pick up stones, or do any such job, I was favoured with the employment. In order, however, that our superior position might not be compromised thereby, a money-box was kept on the kitchen mantel-shelf, in to

s, where we students used to overhear him reading aloud in a most dignified and terrific manner, and occasionally bumping on the ceiling. There was a fiction that Mr Wopsle `examined' the scholars, once a quarter. What he did on those occasions was to turn up his cuffs, stick up his hair, and give us Mark Antony's oration over the body of Caesar. This was always followed by Co

es, and by this oracle Biddy arranged all the shop transaction. Biddy was Mr Wopsle's great-aunt's granddaughter; I confess myself quiet unequal to the working out of the problem, what relation she was to Mr Wopsle. She was an orphan like myself; like me, too, had been brought up by hand. She wa

getting considerably worried and scratched by every letter. After that, I fell among those thieves, the nine figures, who seemed every evening to do somethin

hink it must have been a fully year after our hunt upon the marshes, for it was a long time after, and it was winter and a hard

HABELL 4 2 TEEDGE U JO AN THEN WE SHORL B SO GLODD AN

uch as he sat beside me and we were alone. But, I delivered this written communicat

e, opening his blue eyes wide, `

at the slate as he held it: with a mis

d a O equal to anythink! Here's

y held our Prayer-Book upside down, that it seemed to suit his convenience quite as well as if it had been right. Wishing to embrace the p

lowly searching eye, `One, two, three. Why, here's th

h the aid of my forefinger,

e, when I had finished

ry, Joe?' I asked him,

ll it at all

posing y

aid Joe. `Tho' I'm oncomm

you,

fire, and I ask no better. Lord!' he continued, after rubbing his knees a little, `when you do

ucation, like Steam, was yet in its inf

school, Joe, when you

, P

to school, Joe, when y

. My father, Pip, he were given to drink, and when he were overtook with drink, he hammered away at my mother, most onmerciful. It were a'most the only hammering he did, indeed,

s,

school. But my father were that good in his hart that he couldn't abear to be without us. So, he'd come with a most tremenjous crowd and make such a row at the doors of the houses where we was, that they used to be obligated

nly, po

on the top bar, `rendering unto all their doo, and maintaining equal justi

e; but I di

t keep the pot a biling, Pip, or t

at, and

ave followed it, and I worked tolerable hard, I assure you, Pip. In time I were able to keep him, and I kept him till he went off in a purple leptic fit

fest pride and careful perspicuity, tha

you the truth, hardly believed it were my own ed. As I was saying, Pip, it were my intentions to have had it cut over him; but poetry costs money, cut it how you will, small or large, and it were not done. No

of them, and then the other, in a most uncongenial and unco

nted with your sister. Now, Pip;' Joe looked firmly at me, as if he knew I

ng at the fire, in an

ubject may be, Pip, your sister is,' Joe tapped the top bar with the p

better to say than `I a

I think so, Pip. A little redness or a little matter

f it didn't signify to hi

Very kind of her too, all the folks said, and I said, along with all the folks. As to you,' Joe pursued with a countenance expressive of seeing something ve

ng this, I said, `N

to be asked in church at such times as she was willing and ready to come to the forge, I said to her, "And bring th

the neck: who dropped the poker to hug me, and to say, `Ev

interruption was

in my learning, Pip (and I tell you beforehand I am awful dull, most awful dull), Mrs Joe mustn't see too muc

ithout which, I doubt if he could

is given to

dowy idea (and I am afraid I must add, hope) that Joe had divo

oe. `Which I meantersay the g

O

ntinued, `and in partickler would not be over partial to my being a sc

inquiry, and had got as far

ain. I don't deny that she do throw us back-falls, and that she do drop down upon us heavy. At such times as when your sister is o

, as if it began with at

were your observation wh

s,

ht feel his whisker; and I had no hope of him whenever he took to t

oe was readier with his definition than I had excepted, and completely

and breaking her honest hart and never getting no peace in her mortal days, that I'm dead afeerd of going wrong in the way of not doing what's right by a woman, and I'd fur rather of the two go wrong the t'other way, and be a little ill-conw

erwards, as we had been before; but, afterwards at quiet times when I sat looking at Joe and think

himself up to being equal to strike Eight of 'em, and she's not come home yet! I hope

old stuffs and goods as required a woman's judgment; Uncle Pumblechook being a bachelor and reposing no

enly, and the frost was white and hard. A man would die to-night of lying out on the marshes, I thought. And then I looked at the stars, and cons

' said Joe, `ringing

might see a bright window, and took a final survey of the kitchen that nothing might be out of its place. When we had completed these preparations, they drove up, wrapped to the eyes. Mrs Joe was soon lan

and throwing her bonnet back on her shoulders where it hung by th

bly could, who was wholly uninformed

my sister, `that he won't be P

Mum,' said Mr Pumblech

the motion with his lips and eyebrows, `She?' My sister catching him in the act, he drew the back

snappish way. `What are you s

ual,' Joe politely hin

er. `Unless you call Miss Havisham a he. An

ham, up tow

Havisham down town?

he had better play there,' said my sister, shaking her head at me as a

Miss Havisham up town - as an immensely rich and grim lady who lived in a lar

oe, astounded. `I wonder

y sister. `Who sa

n politely hinted, `mentioned that s

equiring too much of you - but sometimes - go there to pay his rent? And couldn't she then ask Uncle Pumblechook if he knew of a boy to go and play there? And couldn't Uncle Pumblechook, being always considerate and thoughtful for us - though you

. `Well put! Prettily pointed! Good i

Pumblechook, being sensible that for anything we can tell, this boy's fortune may be made by his going to Miss Havisham's, has offered to take him into town to-night in his own chaise-cart, and to keep him to-night, and to take him with his own hands to Miss Havisham's to-morrow morning.

and I was soaped, and kneaded, and towelled, and thumped, and harrowed, and rasped, until I really was quite beside myself. (I may here remark that I suppo

ghtest and fearfullest suit. I was then delivered over to Mr Pumblechook, who formally received me as if he were the Sheriff, and who let off upon me the

-bye,

you, Pip,

see no stars from the chaise-cart. But they twinkled out one by one, without throwing any light on the q