[Great Expectations by Charles Dickens]@TWC D-Link bookGreat Expectations ChapterXXIX
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"Pip's rap," I heard her say, immediately; "come in, Pip." She was in her chair near the old table, in the old dress, with her two hands crossed on her stick, her chin resting on them, and her eyes on the fire.
Sitting near her, with the white shoe, that had never been worn, in her hand, and her head bent as she looked at it, was an elegant lady whom I had never seen. "Come in, Pip," Miss Havisham continued to mutter, without looking round or up; "come in, Pip, how do you do, Pip? so you kiss my hand as if I were a queen, eh ?--Well ?" She looked up at me suddenly, only moving her eyes, and repeated in a grimly playful manner,-- "Well ?" "I heard, Miss Havisham," said I, rather at a loss, "that you were so kind as to wish me to come and see you, and I came directly." "Well ?" The lady whom I had never seen before, lifted up her eyes and looked archly at me, and then I saw that the eyes were Estella's eyes.
But she was so much changed, was so much more beautiful, so much more womanly, in all things winning admiration, had made such wonderful advance, that I seemed to have made none.
I fancied, as I looked at her, that I slipped hopelessly back into the coarse and common boy again.
O the sense of distance and disparity that came upon me, and the inaccessibility that came about her! She gave me her hand.
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