Charles Dickens

“ With her own sweet tranquillity, she calmed my agitation; led me back to the time of our parting; spoke to me of Emily, whom she had visited, in secret, many times; spoke to me tenderly of Dora's grave. With the unerring instinct of her noble heart, she touched the chords of my memory so softly and harmoniously, that not one jarred within me; I could listen to the sorrowful, distant music, and desire to shrink from nothing it awoke. ”

“ Her color came and went once more; and once more, as she bent her head, I saw the same sad smile.
"You will wait and see papa," said Agnes, cheerfully, "and pass the day with us? Perhaps you will sleep in your own room? We always call it yours."
I could not do that, having promised to ride back to my aunt's, at night; but I would pass the day there, joyfully.
"I must be a prisoner for a little while," said Agnes, "but here are the old books, Trotwood, and the old music." ”

“ AGNES.
My aunt and I, when we were left alone, talked far into the night. How the emigrants never wrote home, otherwise than cheerfully and hopefully; how Mr. Micawber had actually remitted divers small sums of money, on account of those "pecuniary liabilities," in reference to which he had been so business-like as between man and man; how Janet, returning into my aunt's service when she came back to Dover, had finally carried out her renunciation of mankind by entering into wedlock with a thriving tavern-keeper ”

“ How could I, when, blended with it all, was her dear self, the better angel of my life?
"And you, Agnes," I said, by and by. "Tell me of yourself. You have hardly ever told me of your own life, in all this lapse of time!"
"What should I tell?" she answered, with her radiant smile. "Papa is well. ”

“ Perhaps she had followed the current of my mind; for it seemed to me an easy one to track now, wilful as it had been once.
"You will find her father a white-haired old man," said my aunt, "though a better man in all other respects—a reclaimed man. Neither will you find him measuring all human interests, and joys, and sorrows, with his one poor little inch-rule now. ”

“ But has she any lover who is worthy of her? Agnes could care for no other."
My aunt sat musing for a little while, with her chin upon her hand. Slowly raising her eyes to mine, she said:
"I suspect she has an attachment, Trot."
"A prosperous one?" said I.
"Trot," returned my aunt gravely, "I can't say. I have no right to tell you even so much. She has never confided it to me, but I suspect it." ”

“ Dear Agnes!"
She had put her hand entreatingiy on his arm, to stop him; and was very, very, pale.
"Well, well!" he said with a sigh, dismissing, as I then saw, some trial she had borne, or was yet to bear, in connexion with what my aunt had told me. "Well! I have never told you, Trotwood, of her mother. Has any one?"
"Never, sir."
"It's not much—though it was much to suffer. She married me in opposition to her father's wish, and he renounced her. She prayed him to forgive her, before my Agnes came into this world. He was a very hard man, and her mother had long been dead. He repulsed her. ”