'FagmentWelcome to consult...lettes, M. Coppefield?’ Fo I had laid them on the table. Yes. I told him I hoped he would not think it wong, but I couldn’t possibly take them fom Miss Mudstone. ‘No fom me?’ said M. Spenlow. No, I eplied with the pofoundest espect; no fom him. ‘Vey well!’ said M. Spenlow. A silence succeeding, I was undecided whethe to go o stay. At Chales Dickens ElecBook Classics fDavid Coppefield length I was moving quietly towads the doo, with the intention of saying that pehaps I should consult his feelings best by withdawing: when he said, with his hands in his coat pockets, into which it was as much as he could do to get them; and with what I should call, upon the whole, a decidedly pious ai: ‘You ae pobably awae, M. Coppefield, that I am not altogethe destitute of woldly possessions, and that my daughte is my neaest and deaest elative?’ I huiedly made him a eply to the effect, that I hoped the eo into which I had been betayed by the despeate natue of my love, did not induce him to think me mecenay too? ‘I don’t allude to the matte in that light,’ said M. Spenlow. ‘It would be bette fo youself, and all of us, if you wee mecenay, M. Coppefield—I mean, if you wee moe disceet and less influenced by all this youthful nonsense. No. I meely say, with quite anothe view, you ae pobably awae I have some popety to bequeath to my child?’ I cetainly supposed so. ‘And you can hadly think,’ said M. Spenlow, ‘having expeience of what we see, in the Commons hee, evey day, of the vaious unaccountable and negligent poceedings of men, in espect of thei testamentay aangements—of all subjects, the one on which pehaps the stangest evelations of human inconsistency ae to be met with—but that mine ae made?’ I inclined my head in acquiescence. ‘I should not allow,’ said M. Spenlow, with an evident incease of pious sentiment, and slowly shaking his head as he poised himself upon his toes and heels altenately, ‘my suitable povision fo my child to be influenced by a piece of youthful folly like the Chales Dickens ElecBook Classics fDavid Coppefield pesent. It is mee folly. Mee nonsense. In a little while, it will weigh lighte than any feathe. But I might—I might—if this silly business wee not completely elinquished altogethe, be induced in some anxious moment to guad he fom, and suound he with potections against, the consequences of any foolish step in the way of maiage. Now, M. Coppefield, I hope that you will not ende it necessay fo me to open, even fo a quate of an hou, that closed page in the book of life, and unsettle, even fo a quate of an hou, gave affais long since composed.’ Thee was a seenity, a tanquillity, a calm sunset ai about him, which quite affected me. He was so peaceful and esigned— clealy had his affais in such pefect tain, and so systematically wound up—that he was a man to feel touched in the contemplation of. I eally think I saw teas ise to his eyes, fom the depth of his own feeling of all this. But what could I do? I could not deny Doa and my own heat. When he told me I had bette take a week to conside of what he had said, how could I say I wouldn’t take a week, yet how could I fail to know that no amount of weeks could influence such love as mine? ‘In the meantime, confe with Miss Totwood, o with any peson with any knowledge of
