the present time, she thinks she knows what
lesson she would set. But it would be a hard one
to learn, and you have got beyond her, and it's of
no use now." So, with a quiet sigh for me, Biddy
rose from the bank, and said, with a fresh and
pleasant change of voice, "Shall we walk a little
further, or go home?"

"Biddy," I cried, getting up, putting my
arm round her neck, and giving her a kiss, "I
shall always tell you everything."

"Till you're a gentleman," said Biddy.

"You know I never shall be, so that's always.
Not that I have any occasion to tell you anything,
for you know everything I know—as I told you
at home the other night."

"Ah!" said Biddy, quite in a whisper, as she
looked away at the ships. And then repeated,
with her former pleasant change; "shall we
walk a little further, or go home?"

I said to Biddy we would walk a little further,
and we did so, and the summer afternoon toned
down into the summer evening, and it was very
beautiful. I began to consider whether I was
not more naturally and wholesomely situated,
after all, in these circumstances, than playing
beggar my neighbour by candlelight in the room
with the stopped clocks, and being despised by
Estella. I thought it would be very good for
me if I could get her out of my head, with all
the rest of those remembrances and fancies,
and could go to work determined to relish what
I had to do, and stick to it, and make the best
of it. I asked myself the question whether I
did not surely know that if Estella were beside
me at that moment instead of Biddy, she would
make me miserable? I was obliged to admit
that I did know it for a certainty, and I said to
myself, "Pip, what a fool you are!"

We talked a good deal as we walked, and all
that Biddy said seemed right. Biddy was never
insulting, or capricious, or Biddy to-day and
somebody else to-morrow; she would have
derived only pain, and no pleasure, from giving
me pain; she would far rather have wounded her
own breast than mine. How could it be then,
that I did not like her much the better of the
two?

"Biddy," said I, when we were walking
homeward, "I wish you could put me right."

' I wish I could!" said Biddy.

"If I could only get myself to fall in love
with you—you don't mind my speaking so
openly to such an old acquaintance?"

"Oh dear, not at all!" said Biddy. "Don't
mind me."

"If I could only get myself to do it, that would
be the thing for me."

"But you never will, you see," said Biddy.

It did not appear quite so unlikely to me that
evening, as it would have done if we had
discussed it a few hours before. I therefore
observed I was not quite sure of that. But
Biddy said she was, and she said it decisively.
In my heart I believed her to be right; and yet
I took it rather ill, too, that she should be so
positive on the point.

When we came near the churchyard, we had
to cross an embankment, and get over a stile
near a sluice-gate. There started up, from the
gate, or from the rushes, or from the ooze
(which was quite in his stagnant way), old
Orlick.

"Halloa!" he growled, "where are you two
going?"

Where should we be going, but home?
"Well then," said he, "I'm jiggered if I don't
see you home!"

This penalty of being jiggered was a favourite
supposititious case of his. He attached no
definite meaning to the word that I am aware of,
but used it, like his own pretended Christian
name, to affront mankind, and convey an idea of
something savagely damaging. When I was
younger, I had had a general belief that if he
had jiggered me personally, he would have done
it with a sharp and twisted hook.

Biddy was much against his going with us,
and said to me in a whisper, "Don't let him
come; I don't like him." As I did not like
him either, I took the liberty of saying that we
thanked him but we didn't want seeing home.
He received that piece of information with a
yell of laughter, and dropped back, but came
slouching after us at a little distance.

Curious to know whether Biddy suspected
him of having had a hand in that murderous
attack of which my sister had never been able to
give any account, I asked her why she did not
like him?

"Oh!" she replied, glancing over her shoulder
as he slouched after us, "because I—I am
afraid he likes me."

"Did he ever tell you he liked you?" I
asked, indignantly.

"No," said Biddy, glancing over her shoulder
again, "he never told me so; but he dances at
me, whenever he can catch my eye."

However novel and peculiar this testimony of
attachment, I did not doubt the accuracy of the
interpretation. I was very hot indeed upon
old Orlick's daring to admire her; as hot as if
it were an outrage on myself.

"But it makes no difference to you, you
know," said Biddy, calmly.

"No, Biddy, it makes no difference to me; only
I don't like it; I don't approve of it."

"Nor I neither," said Biddy. "Though that
makes no difference to you."

"Exactly," said I; "but I must tell you I
should have no opinion of you, Biddy, if he
danced at you with your own consent."

I kept an eye on Orlick after that night, and,
whenever circumstances were favourable to his
dancing at Biddy, got before him, to obscure
that demonstration. He had struck root in
Joe's establishment, by reason of my sister's
sudden fancy for him, or I should have tried
to get him dismissed. He quite understood and
reciprocated my good intentions, as I had reason
to know thereafter.

And now, because my mind was not confused
enough before, I complicated its confusion fifty
thousand-fold, by having states and seasons
when I was clear that Biddy was immeasurably