you re right to speak out you re to choose for yourself you re as free a a little bird then i to him and i says i wish it could have been so but it can t but you can both be as you was and i say to you is be as you was with her like a man he says to me a shaking of my hand i will he says and he was � honorable and � for two year going on and we was just the same at home here as afore mr s face which had varied in its expression with the various stages of his narrative now resumed all its former triumphant delight as he laid a hand upon my knee and a hand upon s previously them both for the greater emphasis of the action and divided the following speech between us all of a sudden one evening � as it might be to night � comes little em ly from her work and him with her there ain t so much in that you say no because he takes care on her like a brother dark and indeed afore dark and at all times but this chap he takes hold of her hand and he cries out to me joyful look here this is to be my little wife and she says half bold and half shy and half a laughing and half a crying yes uncle if you please � if i please cried mr rolling his head in an at the idea lord as if i should do else � if you please i am now and i have thought better of it and i be as good a little wife as i can to him for he s a dear good fellow then she her hands like a play and you come in there the murder s out said mr � you come in it took place this here present hour and here s the man that marry her the minute she s out of her time ham staggered as well he might under the blow mr dealt him in his unbounded joy as a mark of confidence and friendship but feeling called upon to say something to us he said with much faltering and great difficulty of david she warn t no higher than you was r � when you first come � � when i thought what she d grow up to be i see her grow up � � like a flower i down my life for her � r oh most content and cheerful she s more to me � � than � she s all to me that ever i can want and more than ever i � than ever i could say i � her true there ain t a in all the land � nor yet sailing upon all the that can love his lady more than i love her though there s many a common man � would say better � what he meant i thought it affecting to see such a sturdy fellow as ham was now trembling in the strength of what he felt for the pretty little creature who had won his heart i thought the simple confidence in us by mr and by himself was in itself affecting i was affected by the story altogether how far my emotions were influenced by the recollections of my childhood i don t know whether i had come there with any lingering fancy that i was still to love little em ly i don t know i know that i was filled with pleasure by all this but at first with an sensitive pleasure that a very little would have changed to pain therefore if it had depended upon me to touch the prevailing among them with any skill i should have made a poor hand of it but it depended upon and he did it with such address that in a few minutes we were all as easy and as happy as it was possible to be mr he said you are a thoroughly good fellow and deserve to be as happy as you are to night my hand upon it ham give you joy my boy my hand upon that too stir the fire and make it a brisk one and mr unless you can induce your gentle niece to come back for whom i this seat in the corner i shall go any gap at your fireside on such a night � such a gap least of all � i wouldn t make for the wealth of the indies so mr went into my old room to fetch little em ly at first little em ly didn t like to come and then went presently they brought her to the fireside very much confused and very shy � but she soon became more assured when she found how gently and respectfully spoke to her how he avoided anything that would her how he talked to mr of boats and ships and tides and fish how he referred to me about the time when he had seen mr at house how delighted he was with the boat and all belonging to it how lightly and easily he carried on until he brought us by degrees into a charmed circle and we were all talking away without any reserve em ly indeed said little all the evening but she looked and listened and her face got animated and she was charming told a story of a dismal which arose out of his talk with mr as if he saw it all before him � and little em ly s eyes were fastened on him all the time as if she saw it too he told us a merry adventure of his own as a relief to that with as much gaiety as if the narrative were as fresh 