“A mixed fiddlestick!” returned my aunt. “You claim to have one plain motive in all you do yourself. You don’t suppose, I hope, that you are the only plain dealer in the world?”

“Aye, but I have only one motive in life, Miss Trotwood,” he rejoined, smiling. “Other people have dozens, scores, hundreds. I have only one. There’s the difference. However, that’s beside the question. The best school? Whatever the motive, you want the best?”

My aunt nodded assent.

“At the best we have,” said Mr. Wickfield, considering, “your nephew couldn’t board just now.”

“But he could board somewhere else, I suppose?” suggested my aunt.

Mr. Wickfield thought I could. After a little discussion, he proposed to take my aunt to the school, that she might see it and judge for herself; also to take her, with the same object, to two or three houses where he thought I could be boarded. My aunt embracing the proposal, we were all three going out together, when he stopped and said—

“Our little friend here might have some motive, perhaps, for objecting to the arrangements. I think we had better leave him behind?”

My aunt seemed disposed to contest the point, but to facilitate matters I said I would gladly remain behind if they pleased, and returned into Mr. Wickfield’s office, where I sat down again in the chair I had first occupied, to await their return.

It so happened that this chair was opposite a narrow passage, which ended in the little circular room where I had seen Uriah Heep’s pale face looking out of window. Uriah, having taken the pony to a neighbouring stable, was at work at a desk in this room, which had a brass frame on the top to hang papers upon, and on which the writing he was making a copy of was then hanging. Though his face was towards me, I thought, for some time, the writing being between us, that he could not see me; but looking that way more attentively, it made me uncomfortable to observe that, every now and then, his sleepless eyes would come below the writing, like two red suns, and stealthily stare at me for I dare say a whole minute at a time, during which his pen went, or pretended to go, as cleverly as ever. I made several attempts to get out of their way—such as standing on a chair to look at a map on the other side of the room, and poring over the columns of a Kentish newspaper—but they always attracted me back again; and whenever I looked towards those two red suns, I was sure to find them, either just rising or just setting.

At length, much to my relief, my aunt and Mr. Wickfield came back, after a pretty long absence. They were not so successful as I could have wished; for though the advantages of the school were undeniable, my aunt had not approved of any of the boarding-houses proposed for me.

“It’s very unfortunate,” said my aunt. “I don’t know what to do, Trot.”

“It does happen unfortunately,” said Mr. Wickfield. “But I’ll tell you what you can do, Miss Trotwood.”

“What’s that?” inquired my aunt.

“Leave your nephew here, for the present. He’s a quiet fellow. He won’t disturb me at all. It’s a capital house for study. As quiet as a monastery, and almost as roomy. Leave him here.”

My aunt evidently liked the offer, though she was delicate of accepting it. So did I.

“Come, Miss Trotwood,” said Mr. Wickfield. “This is the way out of the difficulty. It’s only a temporary arrangement, you know. If it don’t act well, or don’t quite accord with our mutual convenience, he can easily go to the right-about. There will be time to find some better place for him in the meanwhile. You had better determine to leave him here for the present!”