cool four thousand to Mr. Matthew Pocket. And
why, do you suppose, above all things, Pip, she
left that cool four thousand unto him?
'Because of Pip's account of him the said Matthew.'
I am told by Biddy, that air the writing," said
Joe, repeating the legal turn as if it did him
infinite good, "'account of him the said
Matthew.' And a cool four thousand, Pip!"

I never discovered from whom Joe derived
the conventional temperature of the four thousand
pounds, but it appeared to make the sum
of money more to him, and he had a manifest
relish in insisting on its being cool.

This account gave me great joy, as it perfected
the only good thing I had done. I asked Joe
whether he had heard if any of the other
relations had any legacies?

"Miss Sarah," said Joe, "she have twenty-five
pound perannium fur to buy pills, on account
of being bilious. Miss Georgiana, she have
twenty pound down. Mrs——what's the
name of them wild beasts with humps, old
chap?"

"Camels?" said I, wondering why he could
possibly want to know.

Joe nodded. ''Mrs. Camels," by which I
presently understood he meant Camilla, "she
have five pound fur to buy rushlights to put her
in spirits when she wake up in the night."

The accuracy of these recitals was
sufficiently obvious to me, to give me great
confidence in Joe's information. "And now," said
Joe, ''you ain't that strong yet, old chap, that
you can take in more nor one additional shovel-
full to-day. Old Orlick he's been a bustin' open
a dwelling-ouse."

"Whose?" said I.

"Not, I grant you, but what his manners is
given to blusterous," said Joe, apologetically;
"still, a Englishman's ouse is his Castle, and
castles must not be busted 'cept when done in
war time. And wotsume'er the failings on his
part, he were a corn and seedsman in his
hart."

"Is it Pumblechook's house that has been
broken into, then?"

"That's it, Pip," said Joe; "and they took
his till, and they took his cash-box, and they
drinked his wine, and they partook of his
wittles, and they slapped his face, and they
pulled his nose, aud they tied him up to his
bedpust, and they giv' him a dozen, and they
stuffed his mouth full of flowering annuals to
prewent his crying out. But he knowed Orlick,
and Orlick's in the county jail."

By these approaches, we arrived at
unrestricted conversation I was slow to gain
strength, but I did slowly and surely become
less weak, and Joe stayed with me, and I
fancied I was little Pip again.

For, the tenderness of Joe was so beautifully
proportioned to my need, that I was like a child
in his hands. He would sit and talk to me in
the old confidence, and with the old simplicity,
and in the old unassertive protecting way, so
that I would half believe that all my life
since the days of the old kitchen was one of the
mental troubles of the fever that was gone. He
did everything for me except the household
work, for which he had engaged a very
decent woman, after paying off the laundress
on his first arrival. "Which I do assure
you, Pip," he would often say, in explanation
of that liberty; "I found her a tapping
the spare bed, like a cask of beer, and drawing
off the feathers in a bucket, for sale. Which
she would have tapped yourn next and draw'd it
off with you a laying on it, and was then a
carrying away the coals gradiwally in the soup-
tureen and wegetable-dishes, and the wine and
spirits in your Wellington boots."

We looked forward to the day when I should
go out for a ride, as we had once looked
forward to the day of my apprenticeship. And
when the day came, and an open carriage was
got into the Lane, Joe wrapped me up, took me
in his arms, carried me down to it, and put me
in, as if I were still the small helpless creature to
whom he had so abundantly given of the wealth
of his great nature.

And Joe got in beside me, and we drove away
together into the country, where the rich summer
growth was already on the trees and on the
grass, and sweet summer scents filled all the air.
The day happened to be Sunday, and, when I
looked on the loveliness around me, and thought
how it had grown and changed, and how the
little wild flowers had been forming, and the
voices of the birds had been strengthening, by
day and by night, under the sun and under the
stars, while poor I lay burning and tossing on my
bed, the mere remembrance of having burned and
tossed there, came like a check upon my peace.
But, when I heard the Sunday bells, and looked
around a little more upon the outspread beauty,
I felt that I was not nearly thankful enough—
that I was too weak yet, to be even that—and I
laid my head on Joe's shoulder, as I had laid it
long ago when he had taken me to the Fair or
where not, and it was too much for my young
senses.

More composure came to me after a while,
and we talked as we used to talk, lying on the
grass at the old Battery. There was no change
whatever in Joe. Exactly what he had been in
my eyes then, he was in my eyes still; just as
simply faithful, and as simply right.

When we got back again and he lifted me
out, and carried me—so easily—across the court
and up the stairs, I thought of that eventful
Christmas Day when he had carried me over the
marshes. We had not yet made any allusion
to my change of fortune, nor did I know how
much of my late history he was acquainted
with. I was so doubtful of myself now, and
put so much trust in him, that I could not
satisfy myself whether I ought to refer to it
when he did not.

"Have you heard, Joe," I asked him that
evening, upon further consideration, as he
smoked his pipe at the window, "who my
patron was?"

"I heard," returned Joe, "as it were not
Miss Havisham, old chap."