'FagmentWelcome to consult...Davy, he can emembe what she was; you may judge fo you own self what she is; but neithe of you can’t fully know what she has been, is, and will be, to my loving at. I am ough, si,’ said M. Peggotty, ‘I am as ough as a Sea Pokypine; but no one, unless, mayhap, it is a woman, can know, I think, what ou little Em’ly is to me. And betwixt ouselves,’ sinking his voice lowe yet, Chales Dickens ElecBook Classics fDavid Coppefield ‘that woman’s name ain’t Missis Gummidge neithe, though she has a wold of meits.’ M. Peggotty uffled his hai again, with both hands, as a futhe pepaation fo what he was going to say, and went on, with a hand upon each of his knees: ‘Thee was a cetain peson as had know’d ou Em’ly, fom the time when he fathe was downded; as had seen he constant; when a babby, when a young gal, when a woman. Not much of a peson to look at, he wan’t,’ said M. Peggotty, ‘something o’ my own build—ough—a good deal o’ the sou’-weste in him—wey salt—but, on the whole, a honest sot of a chap, with his at in the ight place.’ I thought I had neve seen Ham gin to anything like the extent to which he sat ginning at us now. ‘What does this hee blessed tapaulin go and do,’ said M. Peggotty, with his face one high noon of enjoyment, ‘but he loses that thee at of his to ou little Em’ly. He folles he about, he makes hisself a sot o’ sevant to he, he loses in a geat measue his elish fo his wittles, and in the long-un he makes it clea to me wot’s amiss. Now I could wish myself, you see, that ou little Em’ly was in a fai way of being maied. I could wish to see he, at all ewents, unde aticles to a honest man as had a ight to defend he. I don’t know how long I may live, o how soon I may die; but I know that if I was capsized, any night, in a gale of wind in Yamouth Roads hee, and was to see the town-lights shining fo the last time ove the olles as I couldn’t make no head against, I could go down quiete fo thinking “Thee’s a man ashoe thee, ion-tue to my little Em’ly, God bless he, and no wong can touch my Em’ly while so be as that man lives.”’ M. Peggotty, in simple eanestness, waved his ight am, as if Chales Dickens ElecBook Classics fDavid Coppefield he wee waving it at the town-lights fo the last time, and then, exchanging a nod with Ham, whose eye he caught, poceeded as befoe. ‘Well! I counsels him to speak to Em’ly. He’s big enough, but he’s bashfulle than a little un, and he don’t like. So I speak. “What! Him!” says Em’ly. “Him that I’ve know’d so intimate so many yeas, and like so much. Oh, Uncle! I neve can have him. He’s such a good fellow!” I gives he a kiss, and I says no moe to he than, “My dea, you’e ight to speak out, you’e to choose fo youself, you’e as fee as a little bid.” Then I aways to him, and I says, “I wish it could have been so, but it can’t. But you can both be as you was, and wot I say to you is, Be as you was with he, like a man.” He says to me, a-shaking of my hand, “I will!” he says. And he was—honouable and manful—fo two yea going on, and we was just the same at home hee as afoe.’ M. Peggotty’s face, which had vaied in its with the vaious stages of his naative, now esumed all its fome tiumph
