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That good creature - I mean Peggotty - all untired by
her late anxieties and sleepless nights, was at her broth-
er’s, where she meant to stay till morning. An old woman,
who had been employed about the house for some weeks
past, while Peggotty had been unable to attend to it, was
the house’s only other occupant besides myself. As I had
no occasion for her services, I sent her to bed, by no means
against her will, and sat down before the kitchen fire a little
while, to think about all this.
I was blending it with the deathbed of the late Mr. Bar-
kis, and was driving out with the tide towards the distance
at which Ham had looked so singularly in the morning,
when I was recalled from my wanderings by a knock at the
door. There was a knocker upon the door, but it was not that
which made the sound. The tap was from a hand, and low
down upon the door, as if it were given by a child.
It made me start as much as if it had been the knock of a
footman to a person of distinction. I opened the door; and
at first looked down, to my amazement, on nothing but a
great umbrella that appeared to be walking about of itself.
But presently I discovered underneath it, Miss Mowcher.
I might not have been prepared to give the little crea-
ture a very kind reception, if, on her removing the umbrella,
which her utmost efforts were unable to shut up, she had
shown me the ‘volatile’ expression of face which had made
so great an impression on me at our first and last meeting.
But her face, as she turned it up to mine, was so earnest;
and when I relieved her of the umbrella (which would have
been an inconvenient one for the Irish Giant), she wrung