But you can both be as you was, and wot I say to you is, Be as you was with her, like a man." He says to me, a-shaking of my hand, "I will!" he says.

And he was--honourable and manful--for two year going on, and we was just the same at home here as afore.' Mr.Peggotty's face, which had varied in its expression with the various stages of his narrative, now resumed all its former triumphant delight, as he laid a hand upon my knee and a hand upon Steerforth's (previously wetting them both, for the greater emphasis of the action), and divided the following speech between us: 'All of a sudden, one evening--as it might be tonight--comes little Em'ly from her work, and him with her! There ain't so much in that, you'll say.

No, because he takes care on her, like a brother, arter dark, and indeed afore dark, and at all times.

But this tarpaulin chap, he takes hold of her hand, and he cries out to me, joyful, "Look here! This is to be my little wife!" And she says, half bold and half shy, and half a laughing and half a crying, "Yes, Uncle! If you please."-- If I please!' cried Mr.Peggotty, rolling his head in an ecstasy at the idea; 'Lord, as if I should do anythink else!--"If you please, I am steadier now, and I have thought better of it, and I'll be as good a little wife as I can to him, for he's a dear, good fellow!" Then Missis Gummidge, she claps her hands like a play, and you come in.

Theer! the murder's out!' said Mr.Peggotty--'You come in! It took place this here present hour; and here's the man that'll marry her, the minute she's out of her time.' Ham staggered, as well he might, under the blow Mr.Peggotty dealt him in his unbounded joy, as a mark of confidence and friendship; but feeling called upon to say something to us, he said, with much faltering and great difficulty: 'She warn't no higher than you was, Mas'r Davy--when you first come--when I thought what she'd grow up to be.