Steerforth, who gave me her hand more coldly than of yore, and with an augmentation of her former stateliness of manner, but still, I perceived — and I was touched by it — with an ineffaceable remembrance of my old love for her son.

She was greatly altered. Her fine figure was far less upright, her handsome face was deeply marked, and her hair was almost white. But when she sat down on the seat, she was a handsome lady still; and well I knew the bright eye with its lofty look, that had been a light in my very dreams at school.

‘Is Mr. Copperfield informed of everything, Rosa?’

‘Yes.’

‘And has he heard Littimer himself?’

‘Yes; I have told him why you wished it.’