Daylight never entered the house as to my thoughts and remembrances of it, any more than as to the actual fact.

It bewildered me, and under its influence I continued at heart to hate my trade and to be ashamed of home.
Imperceptibly I became conscious of a change in Biddy, however.

Her shoes came up at the heel, her hair grew bright and neat, her hands were always clean.

She was not beautiful,--she was common, and could not be like Estella,--but she was pleasant and wholesome and sweet-tempered.
She had not been with us more than a year (I remember her being newly out of mourning at the time it struck me), when I observed to myself one evening that she had curiously thoughtful and attentive eyes; eyes that were very pretty and very good.
It came of my lifting up my own eyes from a task I was poring at--writing some passages from a book, to improve myself in two ways at once by a sort of stratagem--and seeing Biddy observant of what I was about.

I laid down my pen, and Biddy stopped in her needlework without laying it down.
"Biddy," said I, "how do you manage it?
Either I am very stupid, or you are very clever." "What is it that I manage?
I don't know," returned Biddy, smiling.
She managed our whole domestic life, and wonderfully too; but I did not mean that, though that made what I did mean more surprising.
"How do you manage, Biddy," said I, "to learn everything that I learn, and always to keep up with me ?" I was beginning to be rather vain of my knowledge, for I spent my birthday guineas on it, and set aside the greater part of my pocket-money for similar investment; though I have no doubt, now, that the little I knew was extremely dear at the price.
"I might as well ask you," said Biddy, "how you manage ?" "No; because when I come in from the forge of a night, any one can see me turning to at it.