“If you’ll have the goodness to keep my secret, Master Copperfield,” he pursued, “and not, in general, to go against me, I shall take it as a particular favour. You wouldn’t wish to make unpleasantness. I know what a friendly heart you’ve got; but having only known me on my ’umble footing (on my ’umblest I should say, for I am very ’umble still), you might, unbeknown, go against me rather, with my Agnes. I call her mine, you see, Master Copperfield. There’s a song that says, ‘I’d crowns resign, to call her mine!’ I hope to do it, one of these days.”

Dear Agnes! So much too loving and too good for anyone that I could think of, was it possible that she was reserved to be the wife of such a wretch as this!