Biddy sighed as she looked at the ships sailing on, and returned for answer, "Yes; I am not over-particular." It scarcely sounded flattering, but I knew she meant well.

     "Instead of that," said I, plucking up more grass and chewing a blade or two, "see how I am going on. Dissatisfied, and uncomfortable, and--what would it signify to me, being coarse and common, if nobody had told me so!"

     Biddy turned her face suddenly towards mine, and looked far more attentively at me than she had looked at the sailing ships.

     "It was neither a very true nor a very polite thing to say," she remarked, directing her eyes to the ships again. "Who said it?"

     I was disconcerted, for I had broken away without quite seeing where I was going to. It was not to be shuffled off now, however, and I answered, "The beautiful young lady at Miss Havisham's, and she's more beautiful than anybody ever was, and I admire her dreadfully, and I want to be a gentleman on her account." Having made this lunatic confession, I began to throw my torn-up grass into the river, as if I had some thoughts of following it.