“I have still a presentiment,” said Mrs. Micawber, pensively shaking her head, “that my family will appear on board, before we finally depart.”

Mr. Micawber evidently had his presentiment on the subject too, but he put it in his tin pot and swallowed it.

“If you have any opportunity of sending letters home, on your passage, Mrs. Micawber,” said my aunt, “you must let us hear from you, you know.”

“My dear Miss Trotwood,” she replied, “I shall only be too happy to think that anyone expects to hear from us. I shall not fail to correspond. Mr. Copperfield, I trust, as an old and familiar friend, will not object to receive occasional intelligence, himself, from one who knew him when the twins were yet unconscious?”