"I don't mean in the village only, but up
town?"

"No," said he. "No objection."

I thanked him and ran home again, and there
I found that Joe had already locked the front
door, and vacated the state-parlour, and was
seated by the kitchen fire with a hand on each
knee, gazing intently at the burning coals. I
too sat down before the fire and gazed at the
coals, and nothing was said for a long time.

My sister was in her cushioned chair in her
corner, and Biddy sat at her needlework before
the fire, and Joe sat next Biddy, and I sat next
Joe in the corner opposite my sister. The more
I looked into the glowing coals, the more
incapable I became of looking at Joe; the longer
the silence lasted, the more unable I felt to
speak.

At length I got out, "Joe, have you told
Biddy?"

"No, Pip," returned Joe, still looking at the
fire, and holding his knees tight, as if he had
private information that they intended to make
off somewhere, "which I left it to yourself,
Pip."

"I would rather you told, Joe."

"Pip's a gentleman of fortun' then," said Joe,
"and God bless him in it!"

Biddy dropped her work and looked at me.
Joe held his knees and looked at me. I looked
at both of them. After a pause, they both
heartily congratulated me; but there was a
certain touch of sadness in their congratulations
that I rather resented.

I took it upon myself to impress Biddy (and
through Biddy, Joe) with the grave obligation
I considered my friends under, to know nothing
and say nothing about the maker of my fortune.
It would all come out in good time, I observed,
and in the mean while nothing was to be said
save that I had come into great expectations
from a mysterious patron. Biddy nodded her
head thoughtfully at the fire as she took
up her work again, and said she would be
very particular; and Joe, still detaining his
knees, said, "Ay, ay, I'll be ekervally partickler,
Pip;" and then they congratulated me
again, and went on to express so much wonder
at the notion of my being a gentleman, that I
didn't half like it.

Infinite pains were then taken by Biddy to
convey to my sister some idea of what had
happened. To the best of my belief, those efforts
entirely failed. She laughed and nodded her
head a great many times, and even repeated
after Biddy the words "Pip" and "Property."
But I doubt if they had more meaning in them
than an election cry, and I cannot suggest a
darker picture of her state of mind.

I never could have believed it without
experience, but as Joe and Biddy became more at
their cheerful ease again, I became quite gloomy.
Dissatisfied with my fortune, of course I could
not be; but it is possible that I may have been,
without quite knowing it, dissatisfied with
myself.

Anyhow, I sat with my elbow on my knee
and my face upon my hand, looking into the
fire, as those two talked about my going away,
and about what they should do without me, and
all that. And whenever I caught one of them
looking at me, though never so pleasantly (and
they often looked at me—particularly Biddy), I
felt offended: as if they were expressing some
mistrust of me. Though Heaven knows they
never did by word or sign.

At those times I would get up and look out
at the door; for our kitchen door opened at
once upon the night, and stood open on summer
evenings to air the room. The very stars to
which I then raised my eyes, I am afraid I took
to be but poor and humble stars for glittering
on the rustic objects among which I had passed
my life.

"Saturday night," said I, when we sat at our
supper of bread-and-cheese and beer. "Five
more days, and then the day before the day!
They'll soon go."

"Yes, Pip," observed Joe, whose voice sounded
hollow in his beer mug. "They'll soon go."

"Soon, soon go," said Biddy.

"I have been thinking, Joe, that when I go
down town on Monday, and order my new
clothes, I shall tell the tailor that I'll come and
put them on there, or that I'll have them sent
to Mr. Pumblechook's. It would be very
disagreeable to be stared at by all the people
here."

"Mr. and Mrs. Hubble might like to see you
in your new gen-teel figure too, Pip," said Joe,
industriously cutting his bread, with his cheese
on it, in the palm of his left hand, and glancing at
my untasted supper as if he thought of the time
when we used to compare slices. "So might
Wopsle. And the Jolly Bargemen might take it
as a compliment."

"That's just what I don't want, Joe. They
would make such a business of it—such a coarse
and common business—that I couldn't bear
myself."

"Ah, that indeed, Pip!" said Joe. "If you
couldn't abear yourself——"

Biddy asked me here, as she sat holding my
sister's plate, "Have you thought about when
you'll show yourself to Mr. Gargery, and your
sister, and me? You will show yourself to us;
won't you?"

"Biddy," I returned with some resentment,
"you are so exceedingly quick that it's difficult
to keep up with you."

("She always were quick," observed Joe.)

"If you had waited another moment, Biddy,
you would have heard me say that I shall bring
my clothes here in a bundle one evening—most
likely on the evening before I go away."

Biddy said no more. Handsomely forgiving
her, I soon exchanged an affectionate good
night with her and Joe, and went up to bed.
When I got into my little room, I sat down and
took a long look at it, as a mean little room
that I should soon be parted from and raised
above, for ever. It was furnished with fresh
young remembrances too, and even at the same
moment I fell into much the same confused