“Peggotty was the best, the truest, the most faithful, most devoted, and most self-denying friend and servant in the world; who had ever loved me dearly, who had ever loved my mother dearly; who had held my mother’s dying head upon her arm, on whose face my mother had imprinted her last grateful kiss. And my remembrance of them both choking me, I broke down as I was trying to say that her home was my home, and that all she had was mine, and that I would have gone to her for shelter, but for her humble station, which made me fear that I might bring some trouble on her.” “And, having carried her point, she tapped the doctor’s hand several times with her fan (which she kissed first), and returned triumphantly to her former station.” “Mrs. Markleham was so overcome by this generous speech (which, I need not say, she had not at all expected or led up to) that she could only tell the doctor it was like himself, and go several times through that operation of kissing the sticks of her fan, and then tapping his hand with it.” “She put her hand—its touch was like no other hand—upon my arm for a moment; and I felt so befriended and comforted that I could not help moving it to my lips and gratefully kissing it.” “Miss Murdstone had been looking for us. She found us here; and presented her uncongenial cheek, the little wrinkles in it filled with hair-powder, to Dora to be kissed. Then she took Dora’s arm in hers, and marched us in to breakfast as if it were a soldier’s funeral.” “I hardly knew what I did, I was burning all over to that extraordinary extent; but I took Dora’s little hand and kissed it, and she let me. I kissed Miss Mills’s hand, and we all seemed, to my thinking, to go straight up to the seventh heaven.” “‘But I haven’t got any strength at all,’ said Dora, shaking her curls. ‘Have I, Jip?’ (the dog.) ‘Oh, do kiss Jip and be agreeable!’ “It was impossible to resist kissing Jip, when she held him up to me for that purpose, putting her own bright, rosy little mouth into kissing form as she directed the operation, which she insisted should be performed symmetrically, on the centre of his nose. I did as she bade me, rewarding myself afterwards for my obedience, and she charmed me out of my graver character for I don’t know how long.” “At length her eyes were lifted up to mine, and she stood on tiptoe to give me, more thoughtfully than usual, that precious little kiss—once, twice, three times—and went out of the room.” “My pretty little Dora’s face would fall, and she would make her mouth into a bud again, as if she would very much prefer to shut mine with a kiss.” “And Mrs. Gummidge took his hand, and kissed it with a homely pathos and affection, in a homely rapture of devotion and gratitude that he well deserved.” The remainder of our selections will be found in “Our Mutual Friend:”