Great Expectations

I had been doing this, in an excess of attention to his recital. I

thanked him, and apologized. He said, "Not at all," and resumed.

"Miss Havisham was now an heiress, and you may suppose was looked after

as a great match. Her half-brother had now ample means again, but what

with debts and what with new madness wasted them most fearfully again.

There were stronger differences between him and her than there had been

between him and his father, and it is suspected that he cherished a deep

and mortal grudge against her as having influenced the father's anger.

Now, I come to the cruel part of the story,--merely breaking off, my

dear Handel, to remark that a dinner-napkin will not go into a tumbler."

Why I was trying to pack mine into my tumbler, I am wholly unable to

say. I only know that I found myself, with a perseverance worthy of a

much better cause, making the most strenuous exertions to compress it

within those limits. Again I thanked him and apologized, and again he

said in the cheerfullest manner, "Not at all, I am sure!" and resumed.

"There appeared upon the scene--say at the races, or the public

balls, or anywhere else you like--a certain man, who made love to Miss

Havisham. I never saw him (for this happened five-and-twenty years ago,

before you and I were, Handel), but I have heard my father mention that

he was a showy man, and the kind of man for the purpose. But that he was

not to be, without ignorance or prejudice, mistaken for a gentleman, my

father most strongly asseverates; because it is a principle of his that

no man who was not a true gentleman at heart ever was, since the world

began, a true gentleman in manner. He says, no varnish can hide the

grain of the wood; and that the more varnish you put on, the more the

grain will express itself. Well! This man pursued Miss Havisham closely,

and professed to be devoted to her. I believe she had not shown much

susceptibility up to that time; but all the susceptibility she possessed

certainly came out then, and she passionately loved him. There is no

doubt that she perfectly idolized him. He practised on her affection in

that systematic way, that he got great sums of money from her, and he

induced her to buy her brother out of a share in the brewery (which had

been weakly left him by his father) at an immense price, on the plea

that when he was her husband he must hold and manage it all. Your

guardian was not at that time in Miss Havisham's counsels, and she was

too haughty and too much in love to be advised by any one. Her relations

were poor and scheming, with the exception of my father; he was poor

enough, but not time-serving or jealous. The only independent one among

them, he warned her that she was doing too much for this man, and

was placing herself too unreservedly in his power. She took the first

opportunity of angrily ordering my father out of the house, in his

presence, and my father has never seen her since."