on my best clothes, and having my boots cleaned over and over
again. I seem, then, to be worthier of the eldest Miss Larkins.
Everything that belongs to her, or is connected with her, is
precious to me. Mr. Larkins (a gruff old gentleman with a double
chin, and one of his eyes immovable in his head) is fraught with
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David Copperfield
interest to me. When I can’t meet his daughter, I go where I am
likely to meet him. To say ‘How do you do, Mr. Larkins? Are the
young ladies and all the family quite well?’ seems so pointed, that I
blush.
I think continually about my age. Say I am seventeen, and say
that seventeen is young for the eldest Miss Larkins, what of that?
Besides, I shall be one-and-twenty in no time almost. I regularly
take walks outside Mr. Larkins’s house in the evening, though it
cuts me to the heart to see the officers go in, or to hear them up in
the drawing-room, where the eldest Miss Larkins plays the harp. I
even walk, on two or three occasions, in a sickly, spoony manner,
round and round the house after the family are gone to bed,
wondering which is the eldest Miss Larkins’s chamber (and
pitching, I dare say now, on Mr. Larkins’s instead); wishing that a
fire would burst out; that the assembled crowd would stand
appalled; that I, dashing through them with a ladder, might rear it
against her window, save her in my arms, go back for something
she had left behind, and perish in the flames. For I am generally
disinterested in my love, and think I could be content to make a
figure before Miss Larkins, and expire.
Generally, but not always. Sometimes brighter visions rise
before me. When I dress (the occupation of two hours), for a great
ball given at the Larkins’s (the anticipation of three weeks), I
indulge my fancy with pleasing images. I picture myself taking
courage to make a declaration to Miss Larkins. I picture Miss
Larkins sinking her head upon my shoulder, and saying, ‘Oh, Mr.
Copperfield, can I believe my ears!’ I picture Mr. Larkins waiting
on me next morning, and saying, ‘My dear Copperfield, my
daughter has told me all. Youth is no objection. Here are twenty
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David Copperfield
thousand pounds. Be happy!’ I picture my aunt relenting, and
blessing us; and Mr. Dick and Doctor Strong being present at the
marriage ceremony. I am a sensible fellow, I believe—I believe, on
looking back, I mean—and modest I am sure; but all this goes on
notwithstanding. I repair to the enchanted house, where there are
lights, chattering, music, flowers, officers (I am sorry to see), and
the eldest Miss Larkins, a blaze of beauty. She is dressed in blue,
with blue flowers in her hair—forget-me-nots—as if SHE had any
need to wear forget-me-nots. It is the first really grown-up party
that I have ever been invited to, and I am a little uncomfortable;
for I appear not to belong to anybody, and nobody appears to have
anything to say to me, except Mr. Larkins, who asks me how my
schoolfellows are, which he needn’t do, as I have not come there to
be insulted.
But after I have stood in the doorway for some time, and
feasted my eye"};
