“Yet you didn’t mind supposing I was proud this morning,” I returned.

“Oh dear, no, Master Copperfield!” returned Uriah. “Oh, believe me, no! Such a thought never came into my head! I shouldn’t have deemed it at all proud if you had thought us too ’umble for you. Because we are so very ’umble.”

“Have you been studying much law lately?” I asked, to change the subject.

“Oh, Master Copperfield,” he said, with an air of self-denial, “my reading is hardly to be called study. I have passed an hour or two in the evening, sometimes, with Mr. Tidd.”

“Rather hard, I suppose?” said I. “He is hard to me sometimes,” returned Uriah. “But I don’t know what he might be to a gifted person.”