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knees; I plucked at my hair; I implored her forgiveness; I besought
her to look up; I ravaged Miss Mills's work-box for a smelling-bottle,
and in my agony of mind, applied an ivory needle-case instead, and
dropped all the needles over Dora.
At last I got Dora to look at me, with a horrified expression which I
gradually soothed until it was only loving, and her soft, pretty cheek
was lying against mine.
"Is your heart mine still, dear Dora?"
"O yes! O yes! it's all yours, oh, don't be dreadful."
"My dearest love, the crust well earned--"
"O yes; but I don't want to hear any more about crusts. And after we are
married, Jip must have a mutton chop every day at twelve, or he'll die."
I was charmed with her childish, winning way, and I fondly explained
to her that Jip should have his mutton chop with his accustomed
regularity.
When we had been engaged some half-year or so, Dora delighted me
by asking me to give her that cookery-book I had once spoken of, and
to show her how to keep accounts, as I had once promised I would. I
brought the volume with me on my next visit (I got it prettily bound,
first, to make it look less dry and more inviting), and showed her an old
housekeeping book of my aunt's, and gave her a set of tablets, and a
pretty little pencil-case, and a box of leads, to practice housekeeping
with.
But the cookery-book made Dora's head ache, and the figures made her
cry. They wouldn't add up, she said. So she rubbed them out, and drew
little nosegays, and likenesses of me and Jip, all over the tablets.

Time went on, and at last, here in this hand of mine, I held the wedding
license. There were the two names in the sweet old visionary
connection,--David Copperfield and Dora Spenlow; and there in the
corner was that parental institution, the Stamp Office, looking down
upon our union; and there, in the printed form of words, was the
Archbishop of Canterbury, invoking a blessing on us and doing it as
cheap as could possibly be expected.
I doubt whether two young birds could have known less about keeping
house than I and my pretty Dora did. We had a servant, of course. She
kept house for us. We had an awful time of it with Mary Anne. She was
the cause of our first little quarrel.
"My dearest life," I said one day to Dora, "do you think Mary Anne has
any idea of time?"
"Why, Doady?"
"My love, because it's five, and we were to have dined at four."
My little wife came and sat upon my knee, to coax me to be quiet, and
drew a line with her pencil down the middle of my nose; but I couldn't
dine off that, though it was very agreeable.
"Don't you think, my dear, it would be better for you to remonstrate
with Mary Anne?"
"O no, please! I couldn't, Doady!"
"Why not, my love?"
"O, because I am such a little goose, and she knows I am!"
I thought this sentiment so incompatible with the establishment of any
system of check on Mary Anne, that I frowned a little.
"My precious wife, we must be serious some times. Come! sit down on
this chair, close beside me! Give me the pencil! There! Now let us talk
sensibly. You know, dear," what a little hand it was to hold, and what a

tiny wedding ring it was to see,--"you know, my love, it is not exactly
comfortable to have to go out without one's dinner. Now, is it?"
"N-n-no!"
"My love, how you tremble!"
"Because, I know you're going to scold me."
"My sweet, I am only going to reason."
"O, but reasoning is worse than scolding! I didn't marry to be reasoned
with. If you meant to reason with such a poor little thing as I am, you
ought to have told me so, you cruel boy!"
"Dora, my darling!"
"No, I am not your darling. Because you must be sorry that you married
me, or else you wouldn't reason with me!"
I felt so injured by the inconsequential nature of this charge, that it gave
me courage to be grave.
"Now, my own Dora, you are childish, and are talking nonsense. You
must remember, I am sure, that I was obliged to go out yesterday when
dinner was half over; and that, the day before, I was made quite unwell
by being obliged to eat underdone veal in a hurry; to-day, I don't dine at
all, and I am afraid to say how long we waited for breakfast, and then
the water didn't boil. I don't mean to reproach you, my dear,