Charles Dickens

“ Peggotty had hastened to the chair before the fire. Em'ly, with her arms around her neck, kneeled by her, looking up most earnestly into her face.
"Oh, pray, aunt, try to help me! Ham, dear, try to help me! Mr. David, for the sake of old times, do, please, try to help me! I want to be a better girl than I am. I want to feel a hundred times more thankful than I do. I want to feel more, what a blessed thing it is to be the wife of a good man, and to lead a peaceful life. ”

“ If ever any scapegrace was trimmed and touched up to perfection, you are, Steerforth. If I understand any noddle in the world, I understand yours. Do you hear me when I tell you that, my darling? I understand yours," peeping down into his face. "Now you may mizzle, Jemmy (as we say at Court) , and if Mr. Copperfield will take the chair I'll operate on him."
"What do you say, Daisy?" inquired Steerforth, laughing, and resigning his seat. "Will you be improved?"
"Thank you. Miss Mowcher, not this evening." ”

“ I make the acquaintance of Miss Mowcher.
"I believe you, my pet," replied Miss Mowcher. "I keep his nails in order for him. Twice a week! Fingers and toes!" "He pays well, I hope?" said Steerforth.
"Pays as he speaks, my dear child—through the nose," replied Miss Mowcher. "None of your close shavers the Prince ain't. You'd say so, if you saw his moustachios. Red by nature, black by art." ”

“ From this employment she suddenly desisted, and said to Steerforth, much to my confusion:
"Who's your friend?"
"Mr. Copperfleld," said Steerforth; "he wants to know you."
"Well, then, he shall! I thought he looked as if he did!" returned Miss Mowcher, waddling up to me, bag in hand, and laughing on me as she came. "Face like a peach!" standing on tiptoe to pinch my cheek as I sat. "Quite tempting! I'm very fond of peaches. Happy to make your acquaintance, Mr. Copperfield, I'm sure." ”

“ You never saw such a rusty Prince in all your born days as he was. Like old iron!"
"Is that why you called him a humbug, just now?" inquired Steerforth.
"Oh, you 're a broth of a boy, ain't you?" returned Miss Mowcher, shaking her head violently. "I said, what a set of humbugs we were in general, and I showed you the scraps of the Prince's nails to prove it. The Prince's nails do more for me, in private families of the genteel sort, than all my talents put together. I always carry 'em about. They're the best introduction. ”

“ If Miss Mowcher cuts the Prince's nails, she must be all right. I give 'em away to the young ladies. They put 'em in albums, I believe. Ha! ha! ha! Upon my life, 'the whole social system' (as the men call it when they make speeches in Parliament) is a system of Prince's nails!" said this least of women, trying to fold her short arms, and nodding her large head.
Steerforth laughed heartily, and I laughed too. Miss Mowcher continuing all the time to shake her head (which was very much on one side) , and to look into the air with one eye, and to wink with the other. ”

“ I naturally inquired why he was not there too, instead of pacing the street by himself?
"Why, you see, Mas'r Davy," he rejoined, in a hesitating manner, "Em'ly, she's talking to some 'un in here."
"I should have thought," said I, smiling, "that that was a reason for your being in here too, Ham."
"Well, Mas'r Davy, in a general way, so 'twould be," he returned; "but look'ee here, Mas'r Davy," lowering his voice, and speaking very gravely. "It's a young woman, sir—a young woman, that Em'ly knowed once, and doen't ought to know no more." ”

“ Peggotty shook her head compassionately.
"I'll try," said Martha, "if you'll help me away. I never can do worse than I have done here. I may do better. Oh!" with a dreadful shiver, "take me out of these streets, where the whole town knows me from a child!"
As Em'ly held out her hand to Ham, I saw him put in it a little canvas bag. ”

“ How she wears!—and Mithers himself came into the room where I was waiting for her—there's a man! How he wears! and his wig too, for he's had it these ten years—and he went on at that rate in the complimentary line, that I began to think I should be obliged to ring the bell. Ha! ha! ha! He's a pleasant wretch, but he wants principle."
"What were you doing for Lady Mithers?" asked Steerforth.
"That's tellings, my blessed infant," she retorted, tapping her nose again, screwing up her face, and twinkling her eyes like an imp of supernatural intelligence. "Never you mind! ”

“ So I said, in a graver manner than any of us had yet assumed:
"She is as virtuous as she is pretty. She is engaged to be married to a most worthy and deserving man in her own station of life. I esteem her for her good sense, as much as I admire her for her good looks."
"Well said!" cried Steerforth. "Hear, hear, hear! Now, I'll quench the curiosity of this little Fatima, my dear Daisy, by leaving her nothing to guess at. She is at present apprenticed, Miss Mowcher, or articled, or whatever it may be, to Omer and Joram, Haberdashers, Milliners, and so forth, in this town. Do you observe? ”

“ I knew it, on the instant, quite as well as Ham.
"So Em'ly writes in pencil on a bit of paper," he pursued, "and gives it to her out o' winder to bring here. 'Show that,' she says, 'to my aunt, Mrs. Barkis, and she'll set you down by her fire, for the love of me, till uncle is gone out, and I can come.' By-and-by she tells me what I tell you, Mas'r Davy, and asks me to bring her. What can I do? She doen't ought to know any such, but I can't deny her, when the tears is on her face." ”

“ I said that I congratulated myself on having the honor to make hers, and that the happiness was mutual.
"Oh my goodness, how polite we are!" exclaimed Miss Mowcher, making a preposterous attempt to cover her large face with her morsel of a hand. "What a world of gammon and spinnage it is, though, ain't it!" ”

“ With this, she tilted some of the contents of the little bottle on to one of the little bits of flannel, and, again imparting some of the virtues of that preparation to one of the little brushes, began rubbing and scraping away with both on the crown of Steerforth's head in the busiest manner I ever witnessed, talking all the time.
"There's Charley Pyegrave, the duke's son," she said. "You know Charley?" peeping round into his face.
"A little," said Steerforth.
"What a man he is! There's a whisker! As to Charley's legs, if they were only a pair (which they ain't) , they'd defy competition. ”

“ "What a world of gammon and spinnage it is, though, ain't it!" ”

“ Something to drink?" asked Steerforth.
"To drink?" returned Miss Mowcher, stopping to slap his cheek. "To doctor his own moustachios with, you know. There was a woman in the shop—elderly female—quite a Griffin—who had never even heard of it by name. 'Begging pardon, sir,' said the Griffin to Charley, 'it's not—not—not rouge, is it?' 'Rouge,' said Charley to the Griffin. 'What the unmentionable to ears polite, do you think I want with rouge?' 'No offence, sir,' said the Griffin ”

“ I believe I have been confounding myself with the bad boy who 'didn't care,' and became food for lions—a grander kind of going to the dogs, I suppose. What old women call the horrors, have been creeping over me from head to foot. ”

“ Copperfield?"
I replied politely: "Not at all." But I thought she was rather so, when she tossed up his two half-crowns like a goblin pieman, caught them, dropped them in her pocket, and gave it a loud slap.
"That's the Till!" observed Miss Mowcher, standing at the chair again, and replacing in the bag the miscellaneous collection of little objects she had emptied out of it. "Have I got all my traps? It seems so. It won't do to be like long Ned Beadwood, when they took him to church 'to marry him to somebody,' as he says, and left the bride behind. Ha! ha! ha! ”