. In effect, we presently heard him
uttering suppressed groans of the most dismal nature, as this magpie proceeding
racked him in every joint; but while Peggotty's eyes were full of compassion for
him, she said his generous impulse would do him good, and it was better not to
check it. So he groaned on, until he had got into bed again, suffering. I have
no doubt, a martyrdom; and then called us in, pretending to have just woke up
from a refreshing sleep, and to produce a guinea from under his pillow. His
satisfaction in which happy imposition on us, and in having preserved the
impenetrable secret of the box, appeared to be a sufficient compensation to him
for all his tortures.
    I prepared Peggotty for Steerforth's arrival, and it was not long before he
came. I am persuaded she knew no difference between his having been a personal
benefactor of hers and a kind friend to me, and that she would have received him
with the utmost gratitude and devotion in any case. But his easy, spirited, good
humour; his genial manner, his handsome looks, his natural gift of adapting
himself to whomsoever he pleased, and making direct, when he cared to do it, to
the main point of interest in anybody's heart; bound her to him wholly in five
minutes. His manner to me, alone, would have won her. But, through all these
causes combined, I sincerely believe she had a kind of adoration for him before
he left the house that night.
    He stayed there with me to dinner - if I were to say willingly, I should not
half express how readily and gaily. He went into Mr. Barkis's room like light
and air, brightening and refreshing it as if he were healthy weather. There was
no noise, no effort, no consciousness, in anything he did; but in everything an
indescribable lightness, a seeming impossibility of doing anything else, or
doing anything better, which was so graceful, so natural, and agreeable, that it
overcomes me, even now, in the remembrance.
    We made merry in the little parlour, where the Book of Martyrs, unthumbed
since my time, was laid out upon the desk as of old, and where I now turned over
its terrific pictures, remembering the old sensations they had awakened, but not
feeling them. When Peggotty spoke of what she called my room, and of its being
ready for me at night, and of her hoping I would occupy it, before I could so
much as look at Steerforth, hesitating
