What can I say to her, when Em’ly tied a ribbon off her own neck round little Minnie’s the last night she was here, and laid her head down on the pillow beside her till she was fast asleep! The ribbon’s round my little Minnie’s neck now. It ought not to be, perhaps, but what can I do? Em’ly is very bad, but they were fond of one another. And the child knows nothing!’

Mrs. Joram was so unhappy that her husband came out to take care of her.

Leaving them together, I went home to Peggotty’s; more melancholy myself, if possible, than I had been yet.

That good creature — I mean Peggotty — all untired by her late anxieties and sleepless nights, was at her brother’s, where she meant to stay till