“Trot, I tell you what, my dear,” said my aunt, one morning in the Christmas season when I left school: “as this knotty point is still unsettled, and as we must not make a mistake in our decision if we can help it, I think we had better take a little breathing-time. In the meanwhile, you must try to look at it from a new point of view, and not as a schoolboy.”

“I will, aunt.”

“It has occurred to me,” pursued my aunt, “that a little change, and a glimpse of life out of doors, may be useful in helping you to know your own mind, and form a cooler judgement. Suppose you were to go down into the old part of the country again, for instance, and see that⁠—that out-of-the-way woman with the savagest of names,” said my aunt, rubbing her nose, for she could never thoroughly forgive Peggotty for being so called.

“Of all things in the world, aunt, I should like it best!”