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work; at the little bit of wax-candle she kept for her thread - how
old it looked, being so wrinkled in all directions! - at the little
house with a thatched roof, where the yard-measure lived; at her
work-box with a sliding lid, with a view of St. Paul's Cathedral
(with a pink dome) painted on the top; at the brass thimble on her
finger; at herself, whom I thought lovely. I felt so sleepy, that
I knew if I lost sight of anything for a moment, I was gone.

'Peggotty,' says I, suddenly, 'were you ever married?'

'Lord, Master Davy,' replied Peggotty. 'What's put marriage in
your head?'

She answered with such a start, that it quite awoke me. And then
she stopped in her work, and looked at me, with her needle drawn
out to its thread's length.

'But WERE you ever married, Peggotty?' says I. 'You are a very
handsome woman, an't you?'

I thought her in a different style from my mother, certainly; but
of another school of beauty, I considered her a perfect example.
There was a red velvet footstool in the best parlour, on which my
mother had painted a nosegay. The ground-work of that stool, and
Peggotty's complexion appeared to me to be one and the same thing.
The stool was smooth, and Peggotty was rough, but that made no
difference.

'Me handsome, Davy!' said Peggotty. 'Lawk, no, my dear! But what
put marriage in your head?'

'I don't know! - You mustn't marry more than one person at a time,
may you, Peggotty?'

'Certainly not,' says Peggotty, with the promptest decision.

'But if you marry a person, and the person dies, why then you may
marry another person, mayn't you, Peggotty?'

'YOU MAY,' says Peggotty, 'if you choose, my dear. That's a matter
of opinion.'

'But what is your opinion, Peggotty?' said I.

I asked her, and looked curiously at her, because she looked so
curiously at me.

'My opinion is,' said Peggotty, taking her eyes from me, after a
little indecision and going on with her work, 'that I never was
married myself, Master Davy, and that I don't expect to be. That's
all I know about the subject.'

'You an't cross, I suppose, Peggotty, are you?' said I, after
sitting quiet for a minute.

I really thought she was, she had been so short with me; but I was
quite mistaken: for she laid aside her work (which was a stocking
of her own), and opening her arms wide, took my curly head within
them, and gave it a good squeeze. I know it was a good squeeze,
because, being very plump, whenever she made any little exertion
after she was dressed, some of the buttons on the back of her gown
flew off. And I recollect two bursting to the opposite side of the
parlour, while she was hugging me.

'Now let me hear some more about the Crorkindills,' said Peggotty,
who was not quite right in the name yet, 'for I an't heard half
enough.'

I couldn't quite understand why Peggotty looked so queer, or why
she was so ready to go back to the crocodiles. However, we
returned to those monsters, with fresh wakefulness on my part, and
we left their eggs in the sand for the sun to hatch; and we ran

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