her father, he had been an Ogre, or the Dragon of Wantley. This
letter I sealed and laid upon his desk before he returned; and
when he came in, I saw him, through the half-opened door of his
room, take it up and read it.
He said nothing about it all the morning; but before he went
away in the afternoon he called me in, and told me that I need not
make myself at all uneasy about his daughter’s happiness. He had
assured her, he said, that it was all nonsense; and he had nothing
more to say to her. He believed he was an indulgent father (as
indeed he was), and I might spare myself any solicitude on her
account.
‘You may make it necessary, if you are foolish or obstinate, Mr.
Copperfield,’ he observed, ‘for me to send my daughter abroad
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again, for a term; but I have a better opinion of you. I hope you will
be wiser than that, in a few days. As to Miss Murdstone,’ for I had
alluded to her in the letter, ‘I respect that lady’s vigilance, and feel
obliged to her; but she has strict charge to avoid the subject. All I
desire, Mr. Copperfield, is, that it should be forgotten. All you have
got to do, Mr. Copperfield, is to forget it.’
All! In the note I wrote to Miss Mills, I bitterly quoted this
sentiment. All I had to do, I said, with gloomy sarcasm, was to
forget Dora. That was all, and what was that! I entreated Miss
Mills to see me, that evening. If it could not be done with Mr.
Mills’s sanction and concurrence, I besought a clandestine
interview in the back kitchen where the Mangle was. I informed
her that my reason was tottering on its throne, and only she, Miss
Mills, could prevent its being deposed. I signed myself, hers
distractedly; and I couldn’t help feeling, while I read this
composition over, before sending it by a porter, that it was
something in the style of Mr. Micawber.
However, I sent it. At night I repaired to Miss Mills’s street, and
walked up and down, until I was stealthily fetched in by Miss
Mills’s maid, and taken the area way to the back kitchen. I have
since seen reason to believe that there was nothing on earth to
prevent my going in at the front door, and being shown up into the
drawing-room, except Miss Mills’s love of the romantic and
mysterious.
In the back kitchen, I raved as became me. I went there, I
suppose, to make a fool of myself, and I am quite sure I did it. Miss
Mills had received a hasty note from Dora, telling her that all was
discovered, and saying. ‘Oh pray come to me, Julia, do, do!’ But
Miss Mills, mistrusting the acceptability of her presence to the
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higher powers, had not yet gone; and we were all benighted in the
Desert of Sahara.
Miss Mills had a wonderful flow of words, and liked to pour
them out. I could not help feeling, though she mingled her tears
with mine, that she had a dreadful luxury in our afflictions. She
petted them, as I may say, and made the most of them. A deep
gulf, she observed, had opened between Dora and me, and Love
could only span it with its rainbow. Love must suffer in this stern
world; it ever had been so, it ever would be so. No matter, Miss
Mills remarked. Hearts confined by cobwebs would burst at last,
and then Love was avenged.
This was small consolation, but Miss Mills wouldn’t encourage
fallacious hopes. She made me much "};
