My aunt was as happy as I was in this arrangement.  For Mr. Wickfield’s house was quiet and still; and Mr. Wickfield’s little housekeeper was his only daughter, Agnes, a child of about my own age, whose face, so bright and happy, was the child likeness of a woman’s portrait that was on the staircase.  There was a tranquility about the house, and about Agnes, a good, calm spirit, that I have never forgotten and never shall.

The school I now went to was better in every way than Salem House.  It seemed to me so long, however, since I had been among any companions of my own age, except Mick Walker and Mealy Potatoes, that I felt very strange at first.  Whatever I had learnt had so slipped away from me that when I was examined about what I knew, I knew nothing, and was put in the lowest form of the school.

But I got a little the better of my uneasiness when I went to school the next day, and a good deal the better the day after, and so shook it off, by degrees, that in less than a fortnight I was quite at home, and happy among my new companions.

“Trot,” said my aunt, when she left me at Mr. Wickfield’s, “be a credit to yourself, to me, and Mr. Dick, and Heaven be with you!  Never be mean in anything; never be false; never be cruel.  Avoid these vices, Trot, and I can always be hopeful of you.  And now the pony’s at the door, and I am off!”

She embraced me hastily, and went out of the house, shutting the door after her.  When I looked into the street I noticed how dejectedly she got into the chaise, and that she drove away without looking up.

IV.—­Uriah Heep and Mr. Micawber

I first saw Uriah Heep on the day my aunt introduced me to Mr. Wickfield’s house.  He was then a red-haired youth of fifteen, but looking much older, whose hair was cropped as close as the closest stubble; who had hardly any eyebrows and no eyelashes, and eyes of a red-brown.  He was high-shouldered and bony; dressed in decent black, with a white wisp of a neck-cloth; buttoned up to the throat; and had a long, lank, skeleton hand.

Heep was Mr. Wickfield’s clerk, and I often saw him of an evening in the little round office reading, and from time to time strayed in to talk to him.

He told me, one night, he was not doing office work, but was improving his legal knowledge.

“I suppose you are quite a great lawyer?” I said, after looking at him for some time.

“Me, Master Copperfield?” said Uriah.  “Oh, no!  I’m a very ’umble person.  I am well aware that I am the ’umblest person going, let the other be where he may.  My mother is likewise a very ’umble person.  We live in a ’umble abode, Master Copperfield, but have much to be thankful for.  My father’s former calling was ’umble; he was a sexton.”

“What is he now?” I asked.

“He is a partaker of glory at present, Master Copperfield,” said Uriah Heep.  “But we have much to be thankful for.  How much have I to be thankful for in living with Mr. Wickfield!”