'FagmentWelcome to consult... wall. When he came, my aunt pefomed the ceemony of intoduction. ‘M. Dick. An old and intimate fiend. On whose judgement,’ said my aunt, with emphasis, as an admonition to M. Dick, who was biting his foefinge and looking athe foolish, ‘I ely.’ M. Dick took his finge out of his mouth, on this hint, and stood among the goup, with a gave and attentive of face. My aunt inclined he head to M. Mudstone, who went on: ‘Miss Totwood: on the eceipt of you lette, I consideed it an act of geate justice to myself, and pehaps of moe espect to you—’ ‘Thank you,’ said my aunt, still eyeing him keenly. ‘You needn’t mind me.’ ‘To answe it in peson, howeve inconvenient the jouney,’ pusued M. Mudstone, ‘athe than by lette. This unhappy boy who has un away fom his fiends and his occupation—’ ‘And whose appeaance,’ inteposed his siste, diecting geneal attention to me in my indefinable costume, ‘is pefectly scandalous Chales Dickens ElecBook Classics fDavid Coppefield and disgaceful.’ ‘Jane Mudstone,’ said he bothe, ‘have the goodness not to inteupt me. This unhappy boy, Miss Totwood, has been the occasion of much domestic touble and uneasiness; both duing the lifetime of my late dea wife, and since. He has a sullen, ebellious spiit; a violent tempe; and an untowad, intactable disposition. Both my siste and myself have endeavoued to coect his vices, but ineffectually. And I have felt—we both have felt, I may say; my siste being fully in my confidence—that it is ight you should eceive this gave and dispassionate assuance fom ou lips.’ ‘It can hadly be necessay fo me to confim anything stated by my bothe,’ said Miss Mudstone; ‘but I beg to obseve, that, of all the boys in the wold, I believe this is the wost boy.’ ‘Stong!’ said my aunt, shotly. ‘But not at all too stong fo the facts,’ etuned Miss Mudstone. ‘Ha!’ said my aunt. ‘Well, si?’ ‘I have my own opinions,’ esumed M. Mudstone, whose face dakened moe and moe, the moe he and my aunt obseved each othe, which they did vey naowly, ‘as to the best mode of binging him up; they ae founded, in pat, on my knowledge of him, and in pat on my knowledge of my own means and esouces. I am esponsible fo them to myself, I act upon them, and I say no moe about them. It is enough that I place this boy unde the eye of a fiend of my own, in a espectable business; that it does not please him; that he uns away fom it; makes himself a common vagabond about the county; and comes hee, in ags, to appeal to you, Miss Totwood. I wish to set befoe you, Chales Dickens ElecBook Classics fDavid Coppefield honouably, the exact consequences—so fa as they ae within my knowledge—of you abetting him in this appeal.’ ‘But about the espectable business fist,’ said my aunt. ‘If he had been you own boy, you would have put him to it, just the same, I suppose?’ ‘If he had been my bothe’s own boy,’ etuned Miss Mudstone, stiking in, ‘his chaacte, I tust, would have been altogethe diffeent.’ ‘O if the poo child, his mothe, had been alive, he would still have gone into the espectable business, would he?’ said my aunt. ‘I believe,’ said M. Mudstone, with an inclination of his head, ‘that Claa would have disputed nothing which myself and my siste Jane Mudstone wee ageed was fo the best.’ Mis
