David Copperfield by Charles Dickens Chapter 32 Page 21

‘My dear young soul,’ returned Miss Mowcher, squeezing her hands upon her heart one over the other. ‘I am ill here, I am very ill. To think that it should come to this, when I might have known it and perhaps prevented it, if I hadn’t been a thoughtless fool!’

Again her large bonnet (very disproportionate to the figure) went backwards and forwards, in her swaying of her little body to and fro; while a most gigantic bonnet rocked, in unison with it, upon the wall.

‘I am surprised,’ I began, ‘to see you so distressed and serious’ — when she interrupted me.

‘Yes, it’s always so!’ she said. ‘They are all surprised, these inconsiderate young people, fairly and full