The momentous interview.
“Oh!” said my aunt, “I was not aware at first to whom I had the pleasure of objecting. But I don’t allow anybody to ride over that turf. I make no exceptions. I don’t allow anybody to do it.”
“Your regulation is rather awkward to strangers,” said Miss Murdstone.
“Is it!” said my aunt.
Mr. Murdstone seemed afraid of a renewal of hostilities, and interposing began:
“Miss Trotwood!”
“I beg your pardon,” observed my aunt with a keen look. “You are the Mr. Murdstone who married the widow of my late nephew, David Copperfield, of Blunderstone Rookery?—Though why Rookery, I don’t know!”
“I am,” said Mr. Murdstone.
“You’ll excuse my saying, sir,” returned my aunt, “that I think it would have been a much better and happier thing if you had left that poor child alone.”
“I so far agree with what Miss Trotwood has remarked,” observed Miss Murdstone, bridling, “that I consider our lamented Clara to have been, in all essential respects, a mere child.”