, what exhaustless stores
of pure affection yearned to expend themselves upon her!
    An interval ensued, during which Mr. Chuzzlewit, in an absent frame of mind,
sat gazing at the ground, without uttering a word; and as it was plain that he
had no desire to be interrupted in his meditations, Mr. Pecksniff and his
daughters were profoundly silent also. During the whole of the foregoing
dialogue, he had borne his part with a cold, passionless promptitude, as though
he had learned and painfully rehearsed it all, a hundred times. Even when his
expressions were warmest and his language most encouraging, he had retained the
same manner, without the least abatement. But now there was a keener brightness
in his eye, and more expression in his voice, as he said, awakening from his
thoughtful mood:
    »You know what will be said of this? Have you reflected?«
    »Said of what, my dear sir?« Mr. Pecksniff asked.
    »Of this new understanding between us.«
    Mr. Pecksniff looked benevolently sagacious, and at the same time far above
all earthly misconstruction, as he shook his head, and observed that a great
many things would be said of it, no doubt.
    »A great many,« rejoined the old man. »Some will say that I dote in my old
age; that illness has shaken me; that I have lost all strength of mind; and have
grown childish. You can bear that?«
    Mr. Pecksniff answered that it would be dreadfully hard to bear, but he
thought he could, if he made a great effort.
    »Others will say - I speak of disappointed, angry people only - that you
have lied, and fawned, and wormed yourself through dirty ways into my favour; by
such concessions and such crooked deeds, such meannesses and vile endurances, as
nothing could repay: no, not the legacy of half the world we live in. You can
bear that?«
    Mr. Pecksniff made reply that this would be also very hard to bear, as
reflecting, in some degree, on the discernment of Mr. Chuzzlewit. Still he had a
modest confidence that he could sustain the calumny, with the help of a good
conscience, and that gentleman's friendship.
    »With the great mass of slanderers,« said old Martin, leaning back in his
chair, »the tale, as I clearly foresee, will run thus: That to mark my contempt
for the rabble whom I despised, I chose from among them the very worst, and made
him do my will, and
