'FagmentWelcome to consult...p shells and pebbles. ‘You would like to be a lady?’ I said. Emily looked at me, and laughed and nodded ‘yes’. ‘I should like it vey much. We would all be gentlefolks togethe, then. Me, and uncle, and Ham, and Ms. Gummidge. We wouldn’t mind then, when thee comes stomy weathe.—Not fo ou own sakes, I mean. We would fo the poo fishemen’s, to be sue, and we’d help ’em with money when they come to any hut.’ This seemed to me to be a vey satisfactoy and theefoe not at all impobable pictue. I expessed my pleasue in the contemplation of it, and little Em’ly was emboldened to say, shyly, ‘Don’t you think you ae afaid of the sea, now?’ It was quiet enough to eassue me, but I have no doubt if I had seen a modeately lage wave come tumbling in, I should have taken to my heels, with an awful ecollection of he downed elations. Howeve, I said ‘No,’ and I added, ‘You don’t seem to be eithe, though you say you ae,’—fo she was walking much too nea the bink of a sot of old jetty o wooden causeway we had stolled upon, and I was afaid of he falling ove. ‘I’m not afaid in this way,’ said little Em’ly. ‘But I wake when it blows, and temble to think of Uncle Dan and Ham and believe I hea ’em cying out fo help. That’s why I should like so much to be a lady. But I’m not afaid in this way. Not a bit. Look hee!’ She stated fom my side, and an along a jagged timbe which potuded fom the place we stood upon, and ovehung the deep Chales Dickens ElecBook Classics fDavid Coppefield wate at some height, without the least defence. The incident is so impessed on my emembance, that if I wee a daughtsman I could daw its fom hee, I dae say, accuately as it was that day, and little Em’ly spinging fowad to he destuction (as it appeaed to me), with a look that I have neve fogotten, diected fa out to sea. The light, bold, flutteing little figue tuned and came back safe to me, and I soon laughed at my feas, and at the cy I had utteed; fuitlessly in any case, fo thee was no one nea. But thee have been times since, in my manhood, many times thee have been, when I have thought, Is it possible, among the possibilities of hidden things, that in the sudden ashness of the child and he wild look so fa off, thee was any meciful attaction of he into dange, any tempting he towads him pemitted on the pat of he dead fathe, that he life might have a chance of ending that day? Thee has been a time since when I have wondeed whethe, if the life befoe he could have been evealed to me at a glance, and so evealed as that a child could fully compehend it, and if he pesevation could have depended on a motion of my hand, I ought to have held it up to save he. Thee has been a time since—I do not say it lasted long, but it has been—when I have asked myself the question, would it have been bette fo little Em’ly to have had the wates close above he head that moning in my sight; and when I have answeed Yes, it would have been. This may be pematue. I have set it down too soon, pehaps. But let it stand. We stolled a long way, and loaded ouselves with things that we thought cuious, and put some standed stafish caefully back into the wate—I hadly know enough of the ace at this moment Chales Dickens ElecBook Classics fDavid Coppefield to be quite cetain whethe they had eason to feel oblig
