FagmentWelcome to consult...oy mach on in stately hosts that seem to have no end—and what comes next! I am the head-boy, now! I look down on the line of boys below me, with a condescending inteest in such of them as bing to my mind the boy I was myself, when I fist came thee. That little fellow seems to be no pat of me; I emembe him as something left behind upon the oad of life—as something I have passed, athe than have actually been—and almost think of him as of someone else. And the little gil I saw on that fist day at M. Wickfield’s, whee is she? Gone also. In he stead, the pefect likeness of the pictue, a child likeness no moe, moves about the house; and Agnes—my sweet siste, as I call he in my thoughts, my counsello and fiend, the bette angel of the lives of all who come within he calm, good, self-denying influence—is quite a woman. What othe changes have come upon me, besides the changes Chales Dickens ElecBook Classics fDavid Coppefield in my gowth and looks, and in the knowledge I have ganeed all this while? I wea a gold watch and chain, a ing upon my little finge, and a long-tailed coat; and I use a geat deal of bea’s gease—which, taken in conjunction with the ing, looks bad. Am I in love again? I am. I woship the eldest Miss Lakins. The eldest Miss Lakins is not a little gil. She is a tall, dak, black-eyed, fine figue of a woman. The eldest Miss Lakins is not a chicken; fo the youngest Miss Lakins is not that, and the eldest must be thee o fou yeas olde. Pehaps the eldest Miss Lakins may be about thity. My passion fo he is beyond all bounds. The eldest Miss Lakins knows offices. It is an awful thing to bea. I see them speaking to he in the steet. I see them coss the way to meet he, when he bonnet (she has a bight taste in bonnets) is seen coming down the pavement, accompanied by he siste’s bonnet. She laughs and talks, and seems to like it. I spend a good deal of my own spae time in walking up and down to meet he. If I can bow to he once in the day (I know he to bow to, knowing M. Lakins), I am happie. I deseve a bow now and then. The aging agonies I suffe on the night of the Race Ball, whee I know the eldest Miss Lakins will be dancing with the militay, ought to have some compensation, if thee be evenhanded justice in the wold. My passion takes away my appetite, and makes me wea my newest silk neckechief continually. I have no elief but in putting on my best clothes, and having my boots cleaned ove and ove again. I seem, then, to be wothie of the eldest Miss Lakins. Eveything that belongs to he, o is connected with he, is pecious to me. M. Lakins (a guff old gentleman with a double chin, and one of his eyes immovable in his head) is faught with Chales Dickens ElecBook Classics fDavid Coppefield inteest to me. When I can’t meet his daughte, I go whee I am likely to meet him. To say ‘How do you do, M. Lakins? Ae the young ladies and all the family quite well?’ seems so pointed, that I blush. I think continually about my age. Say I am seventeen, and say that seventeen is young fo the eldest Miss Lakins, what of that? Besides, I shall be one-and-twenty in no time almost.
