“Why, how should I ever spend it without you?” said Mr. Peggotty, with an air of serious remonstrance. “What are you a-talking on? Doen’t I want you more now, than ever I did?”

“I know’d I was never wanted before!” cried Mrs. Gummidge, with a pitiable whimper, “and now I’m told so! How could I expect to be wanted, being so lone and lorn, and so contrairy!”

Mr. Peggotty seemed very much shocked at himself for having made a speech capable of this unfeeling construction, but was prevented from replying, by Peggotty’s pulling his sleeve, and shaking her head. After looking at Mrs. Gummidge for some moments, in sore distress of mind, he glanced at the Dutch clock, rose, snuffed the candle, and put it in the window.

“Theer!” said Mr. Peggotty, cheerily. “Theer we are, Missis Gummidge!” Mrs. Gummidge slightly groaned. “Lighted up, accordin’ to custom! You’re a wonderin’ what that’s fur, Sir! Well, it’s fur our little Em’ly. You see, the path ain’t over light or cheerful after dark; and when I’m here at the hour as she’s a-comin’ home, I puts the light in the winder. That, you see,” said Mr. Peggotty, bending over me with great glee, “meets two objects. She says, says Em’ly, ‘Theer’s home!’ she says. And likewise, says Em’ly, ‘My uncle’s theer!’ For if I ain’t theer, I never have no light showed.”

“You’re a baby!” said Peggotty; very fond of him for it, if she thought so.

“Well,” returned Mr. Peggotty, standing with his legs pretty wide apart, and rubbing his hands up and down them in his comfortable satisfaction, as he looked alternately at us and at the fire, “I doen’t know but I am. Not, you see, to look at.”

“Not azackly,” observed Peggotty.

“No,” laughed Mr. Peggotty, “not to look at, but to—to consider on, you know. I doen’t care, bless you! Now I tell you. When I go a-looking and looking about that theer pritty house of our Em’ly’s, I’m—I’m Gormed,” said Mr. Peggotty, with sudden emphasis—“theer! I can’t say more—if I doen’t feel as if the littlest things was her, a’most. I takes ’em up and I puts ’em down, and I touches of ’em as delicate as if they was our Em’ly. So ’tis with her little bonnets and that. I couldn’t see one on ’em rough used a purpose—not fur the whole wureld. There’s a babby for you, in the form of a great Sea Porkypine!” said Mr. Peggotty, relieving his earnestness with a roar of laughter.

Peggotty and I both laughed, but not so loud.

“It’s my opinion, you see,” said Mr. Peggotty, with a delighted face, after some further rubbing of his legs, “as this is along of my havin’ played with her so much, and made believe as we was Turks, and French, and sharks, and every wariety of forrinners—bless you, yes; and lions and whales, and I doen’t know what all !—when she warn’t no higher than my knee. I’ve got into the way on it, you know. Why, this here candle, now!” said Mr. Peggotty, gleefully holding out his hand towards it, “I know wery well that arter she’s married and gone, I shall put that candle theer, just the same as now. I know wery well that when I’m here o’ nights (and where else should I live, bless your ’arts, whatever fortun I come into?) and she ain’t here, or I ain’t theer, I shall put the candle in the winder, and sit afore the fire, pretending I’m expecting of her, like I’m a-doing now. There’s a babby for you,” said Mr. Peggotty, with another roar, “in the form of a Sea Porkypine! Why, at the present minute, when I see the candle sparkle up, I says to myself, ‘She’s a-looking at it! Em’ly’s a-coming!’ There’s a babby for you, in the form of a Sea Porkypine! Right for all that,” said Mr. Peggotty, stopping in his roar, and smiting his hands together; “for here she is!”

It was only Ham. The night should have turned more wet since I came in, for he had a large sou’-wester hat on, slouched over his face.

“Wheer’s Em’ly?” said Mr. Peggotty.