Great Expectations

Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt, besides keeping this Educational Institution,

kept in the same room--a little general shop. She had no idea what stock

she had, or what the price of anything in it was; but there was a little

greasy memorandum-book kept in a drawer, which served as a Catalogue

of Prices, and by this oracle Biddy arranged all the shop transaction.

Biddy was Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt's granddaughter; I confess myself

quiet unequal to the working out of the problem, what relation she was

to Mr. Wopsle. She was an orphan like myself; like me, too, had been

brought up by hand. She was most noticeable, I thought, in respect of

her extremities; for, her hair always wanted brushing, her hands always

wanted washing, and her shoes always wanted mending and pulling up at

heel. This description must be received with a week-day limitation. On

Sundays, she went to church elaborated.

Much of my unassisted self, and more by the help of Biddy than of Mr.

Wopsle's great-aunt, I struggled through the alphabet as if it had been

a bramble-bush; getting considerably worried and scratched by every

letter. After that I fell among those thieves, the nine figures, who

seemed every evening to do something new to disguise themselves and

baffle recognition. But, at last I began, in a purblind groping way, to

read, write, and cipher, on the very smallest scale.

One night I was sitting in the chimney corner with my slate, expending

great efforts on the production of a letter to Joe. I think it must have

been a full year after our hunt upon the marshes, for it was a long

time after, and it was winter and a hard frost. With an alphabet on the

hearth at my feet for reference, I contrived in an hour or two to print

and smear this epistle:-"MI DEER JO i OPE U R KR WITE WELL i OPE i SHAL SON B HABELL 4 2 TEEDGE

U JO AN THEN WE SHORL B SO GLODD AN WEN i M PRENGTD 2 U JO WOT LARX AN

BLEVE ME INF XN PIP."

There was no indispensable necessity for my communicating with Joe by

letter, inasmuch as he sat beside me and we were alone. But I delivered

this written communication (slate and all) with my own hand, and Joe

received it as a miracle of erudition.

"I say, Pip, old chap!" cried Joe, opening his blue eyes wide, "what a

scholar you are! An't you?"

"I should like to be," said I, glancing at the slate as he held it; with

a misgiving that the writing was rather hilly.