“Oh, thank you, Mr. Copperfield! What dear flowers!” said Dora.

I had had an intention of saying (and had been studying the best form of words for three miles) that I thought them beautiful before I saw them so near her . But I couldn’t manage it. She was too bewildering. To see her lay the flowers against her little dimpled chin, was to lose all presence of mind and power of language in a feeble ecstasy. I wonder I didn’t say, “Kill me, if you have a heart, Miss Mills. Let me die here!”

Then Dora held my flowers to Jip to smell. Then Jip growled, and wouldn’t smell them. Then Dora laughed, and held them a little closer to Jip, to make him. Then Jip laid hold of a bit of geranium with his teeth, and worried imaginary cats in it. Then Dora beat him, and pouted, and said, “My poor beautiful flowers!” as compassionately, I thought, as if Jip had laid hold of me. I wished he had!