I shook hands with Mr. Peggotty, and passed into the kitchen, while he softly closed the door. Little Emily was sitting by the fire, with her hands before her face. Ham was standing near her.

We spoke in whispers; listening, between whiles, for any sound in the room above. I had not thought of it on the occasion of my last visit, but how strange it was to me now, to miss Mr. Barkis out of the kitchen!

“This is very kind of you, Mas’r Davy,” said Mr. Peggotty.

“It is oncommon kind,” said Ham.

“Em’ly, my dear,” cried Mr. Peggotty. “See here! Here’s Mas’r Davy come! What, cheer up, pretty! Not a wured to Mas’r Davy?”

There was a trembling upon her, that I can see now. The coldness of her hand when I touched it, I can feel yet. Its only sign of animation was to shrink from mine; and then she glided from the chair, and, creeping to the other side of her uncle, bowed herself, silently and trembling still, upon his breast.

“It’s such a loving ’art,” said Mr. Peggotty, smoothing her rich hair with his great hard hand, “that it can’t a-bear the sorrer of this. It’s nat’ral in young folk, Mas’r Davy, when they’re new to these here trials, and timid, like my little bird,—it’s nat’ral.”

She clung the closer to him, but neither lifted up her face, nor spoke a word.

“It’s getting late, my dear,” said Mr. Peggotty, “and here’s Ham come fur to take you home. Theer! Go along with t’other loving ’art! What, Em’ly? Eh, my pretty?”

The sound of her voice had not reached me, but he bent his head as if he listened to her, and then said—

“Let you stay with your uncle? Why, you doen’t mean to ask me that! Stay with your uncle, Moppet? When your husband that’ll be so soon, is here fur to take you home? Now a person wouldn’t think it, fur to see this little thing alongside a rough-weather chap like me,” said Mr. Peggotty, looking round at both of us, with infinite pride; “but the sea ain’t more salt in it than she has fondness in her for her uncle—a foolish little Em’ly!”

“Em’ly’s in the right in that, Mas’r Davy!” said Ham. “Lookee here! As Em’ly wishes of it, and as she’s hurried and frightened, like, besides, I’ll leave her till morning. Let me stay too!”

“No, no,” said Mr. Peggotty. “You doen’t ought—a married man like you—or what’s as good—to take and hull away a day’s work. And you doen’t ought to watch and work both. That won’t do. You go home and turn in. You ain’t afeerd of Em’ly not being took good care on, I know.”

Ham yielded to this persuasion, and took his hat to go. Even when he kissed her,—and I never saw him approach her, but I felt that nature had given him the soul of a gentleman,—she seemed to cling closer to her uncle, even to the avoidance of her chosen husband. I shut the door after him, that it might cause no disturbance of the quiet that prevailed; and when I turned back, I found Mr. Peggotty still talking to her.

“Now, I’m a-going up-stairs to tell your aunt as Mas’r Davy’s here, and that’ll cheer her up a bit,” he said. “Sit ye down by the fire, the while, my dear, and warm these mortal cold hands. You doen’t need to be so fearsome, and take on so much. What? You’ll go along with me?—Well! come along with me—come! If her uncle was turned out of house and home, and forced to lay down in a dyke, Mas’r Davy,” said Mr. Peggotty, with no less pride than before, “it’s my belief she’d go along with him, now! But there’ll be some one else, soon,—some one else, soon, Em’ly!”