“Little Em’ly didn’t care a bit. She saw me well enough, but, instead of turning round and calling after me, ran away laughing. This obliged me to run after her, and she ran so fast that we were very near the cottage before I caught her.
“‘Oh, it’s you, is it?’ said little Em’ly.
“‘Why, you knew who it was, Em’ly,’ said I.
“‘And didn’t you know who it was?’ said Em’ly. I was going to kiss her, but she covered her cherry lips with her hands, and said she wasn’t a baby now, and ran away, laughing more than ever, into the house.”
“Peggotty was the best, the truest, the most faithful, most devoted, and most self-denying friend and servant in the world; who had ever loved me dearly, who had ever loved my mother dearly; who had held my mother’s dying head upon her arm, on whose face my mother had imprinted her last grateful kiss. And my remembrance of them both choking me, I broke down as I was trying to say that her home was my home, and that all she had was mine, and that I would have gone to her for shelter, but for her humble station, which made me fear that I might bring some trouble on her.”
“And, having carried her point, she tapped the doctor’s hand several times with her fan (which she kissed first), and returned triumphantly to her former station.”
“Mrs. Markleham was so overcome by this generous speech (which, I need not say, she had not at all expected or led up to) that she could only tell the doctor it was like himself, and go several times through that operation of kissing the sticks of her fan, and then tapping his hand with it.”