If my family are at length sensible of the deprivation to which their own conduct has, in the past, exposed them, and now desire to extend the hand of fellowship, let it not be repulsed.’

‘My dear,’ he returned, ‘so be it!’

‘If not for their sakes; for mine, Micawber,’ said his wife.

‘Emma,’ he returned, ‘that view of the question is, at such a moment, irresistible. I cannot, even now, distinctly pledge myself to fall upon your family’s neck; but the member of your family, who is now in attendance, shall have no genial warmth frozen by me.’

Mr. Micawber withdrew, and was absent some little time; in the course of which Mrs. Micawber was not wholly