00 David Copperfield
need I know? Oh, you silly boy!’
So, when I once asked Dora, with an eye to the cookery-
book, what she would do, if we were married, and I were to
say I should like a nice Irish stew, she replied that she would
tell the servant to make it; and then clapped her little hands
together across my arm, and laughed in such a charming
manner that she was more delightful than ever.
Consequently, the principal use to which the cookery-
book was devoted, was being put down in the corner for
Jip to stand upon. But Dora was so pleased, when she had
trained him to stand upon it without offering to come off,
and at the same time to hold the pencil-case in his mouth,
that I was very glad I had bought it.
And we fell back on the guitar-case, and the flower-
painting, and the songs about never leaving off dancing, Ta
ra la! and were as happy as the week was long. I occasion-
ally wished I could venture to hint to Miss Lavinia, that she
treated the darling of my heart a little too much like a play-
thing; and I sometimes awoke, as it were, wondering to find
that I had fallen into the general fault, and treated her like a
plaything too - but not often.