“I came here by the Canterbury coach, today. I have been adopted by an aunt down in that part of the country, and have just finished my education there. How do you come to be here, Steerforth?”

“Well, I am what they call an Oxford man,” he returned; “that is to say, I get bored to death down there, periodically⁠—and I am on my way now to my mother’s. You’re a devilish amiable-looking fellow, Copperfield. Just what you used to be, now I look at you! Not altered in the least!”

“I knew you immediately,” I said; “but you are more easily remembered.”

He laughed as he ran his hand through the clustering curls of his hair, and said gaily: