He told us a merry adventure of his own, as a relief to that, with as much gaiety as if the narrative were as fresh to him as it was to us--and little Em'ly laughed until the boat rang with the musical sounds, and we all laughed (Steerforth too), in irresistible sympathy with what was so pleasant and light-hearted.

He got Mr.Peggotty to sing, or rather to roar, 'When the stormy winds do blow, do blow, do blow'; and he sang a sailor's song himself, so pathetically and beautifully, that I could have almost fancied that the real wind creeping sorrowfully round the house, and murmuring low through our unbroken silence, was there to listen.
As to Mrs.Gummidge, he roused that victim of despondency with a success never attained by anyone else (so Mr.Peggotty informed me), since the decease of the old one.

He left her so little leisure for being miserable, that she said next day she thought she must have been bewitched.
But he set up no monopoly of the general attention, or the conversation.
When little Em'ly grew more courageous, and talked (but still bashfully) across the fire to me, of our old wanderings upon the beach, to pick up shells and pebbles; and when I asked her if she recollected how I used to be devoted to her; and when we both laughed and reddened, casting these looks back on the pleasant old times, so unreal to look at now; he was silent and attentive, and observed us thoughtfully.

She sat, at this time, and all the evening, on the old locker in her old little corner by the fire--Ham beside her, where I used to sit.

I could not satisfy myself whether it was in her own little tormenting way, or in a maidenly reserve before us, that she kept quite close to the wall, and away from him; but I observed that she did so, all the evening.
As I remember, it was almost midnight when we took our leave.