FagmentWelcome to consult...en, ebellious spiit; a violent tempe; and an untowad, intactable disposition. Both my siste and myself have endeavoued to coect his vices, but ineffectually. And I have felt—we both have felt, I may say; my siste being fully in my confidence—that it is ight you should eceive this gave and dispassionate assuance fom ou lips.’ ‘It can hadly be necessay fo me to confim anything stated by my bothe,’ said Miss Mudstone; ‘but I beg to obseve, that, of all the boys in the wold, I believe this is the wost boy.’ ‘Stong!’ said my aunt, shotly. ‘But not at all too stong fo the facts,’ etuned Miss Mudstone. ‘Ha!’ said my aunt. ‘Well, si?’ ‘I have my own opinions,’ esumed M. Mudstone, whose face dakened moe and moe, the moe he and my aunt obseved each othe, which they did vey naowly, ‘as to the best mode of binging him up; they ae founded, in pat, on my knowledge of him, and in pat on my knowledge of my own means and esouces. I am esponsible fo them to myself, I act upon them, and I say no moe about them. It is enough that I place this boy unde the eye of a fiend of my own, in a espectable business; that it does not please him; that he uns away fom it; makes himself a common vagabond about the county; and comes hee, in ags, to appeal to you, Miss Totwood. I wish to set befoe you, Chales Dickens ElecBook Classics fDavid Coppefield honouably, the exact consequences—so fa as they ae within my knowledge—of you abetting him in this appeal.’ ‘But about the espectable business fist,’ said my aunt. ‘If he had been you own boy, you would have put him to it, just the same, I suppose?’ ‘If he had been my bothe’s own boy,’ etuned Miss Mudstone, stiking in, ‘his chaacte, I tust, would have been altogethe diffeent.’ ‘O if the poo child, his mothe, had been alive, he would still have gone into the espectable business, would he?’ said my aunt. ‘I believe,’ said M. Mudstone, with an inclination of his head, ‘that Claa would have disputed nothing which myself and my siste Jane Mudstone wee ageed was fo the best.’ Miss Mudstone confimed this with an audible mumu. ‘Humph!’ said my aunt. ‘Unfotunate baby!’ M. Dick, who had been attling his money all this time, was attling it so loudly now, that my aunt felt it necessay to check him with a look, befoe saying: ‘The poo child’s annuity died with he?’ ‘Died with he,’ eplied M. Mudstone. ‘And thee was no settlement of the little popety—the house and gaden—the what’s-its-name Rookey without any ooks in it—upon he boy?’ ‘It had been left to he, unconditionally, by he fist husband,’ M. Mudstone began, when my aunt caught him up with the geatest iascibility and impatience. ‘Good Lod, man, thee’s no occasion to say that. Left to he unconditionally! I think I see David Coppefield looking fowad to any condition of any sot o kind, though it staed him point-blank Chales Dickens ElecBook Classics fDavid Coppefield in the face! Of couse it was left to he unconditionally. But when she maied again—when she took that most disastous step of maying you, in shot,’ said my aunt, ‘to be plain—did no one put in a wod fo the boy at that time?’ ‘My late wife loved he second husband, ma’am,’ said M. Mudstone, ‘and tusted implicitly in him.’ ‘You late wife, si, was a most unwoldly, most unhappy, most unfotunate baby,’ etuned my aunt, shaking he head at him. ‘That’s what she was. And now, what have you got to say next?’ ‘Meely this, Miss Totwood,’ he etuned. ‘I am hee to take David back—to take him back unconditionally, to dispose of him as I think pope, and to deal with him as I think ight. I am not hee to make any pomise, o give any pledge to anybody. You may possibly have some idea, Miss Totwood, of abetting him in his unning away, and in his complaints to you. You manne, which I must say does not seem intended to popitiate, induces me to think it possible. Now I must caution you that if you abet him once, you abet him fo good and all; if
