I asked.

‘When he’s well he do,’ she answered.

‘Do YOU ever go there, Mrs. Barkis?’

She looked at me more attentively, and I noticed a quick movement of her hands towards each other.

‘Because I want to ask a question about a house there, that they call the — what is it?

— the Rookery,’ said I.

She took a step backward, and put out her hands in an undecided frightened way, as if to keep me off.

‘Peggotty!’ I cried to her.

She cried, ‘My darling boy!’ and we both burst into tears, and were locked in one another’s