That evening Steerforth and I went to see Mr. Peggotty and my other
friends in the boat, and we were so warmly received that it was nearly
midnight when we took our leave. We stayed in Yarmouth for more than a
fortnight, and I made many pilgrimages to the dear haunts of my childhood,
particularly to that place where my mother and father lay, and mingled
with my sad thoughts were brighter ones, about my future--and of how in it
I was to become a man of whom they might have been proud.
At the end of the fortnight came a letter from Aunt Betsey, saying that
she had taken lodgings for a week in London, and that if I would join her,
we could discuss her latest plan for me, which was that I become a proctor
in Doctors' Commons.
I mentioned the plan to Steerforth, and he advised me to take kindly to
it, and by the time that I reached London I had made up my mind to do so.
My aunt was greatly pleased when I told her this, whereupon I proceeded to
add that my only objection to the plan lay in the great expense it would
be to article me,--a thousand pounds at least. I spoke of her past
liberality to me, and asked her whether I had not better choose some work
which required less expensive preliminaries.
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