The first thing my aunt did was to pour the contents of several bottles down my throat. I think they must have been taken out at random, for I am sure I tasted aniseed water, anchovy sauce, and salad dressing. Then she put me on the sofa, and, acting on the advice of a pleasant-looking, grey-headed gentleman, whom she called "Mr. Dick," heated a bath for me. After that I was enrobed in a shirt and trousers belonging to Mr. Dick, tied up in two or three great shawls, and fell asleep. That was the beginning of my aunt's adoption of me. She wrote to Mr. Murdstone, and he and his sister arrived a few days later, and were routed by my aunt. Mr. Murdstone said, finally, he would only take me back unconditionally, and that if I did not return there and then his doors would be shut against me henceforth. "And what does the boy say?" said my aunt. "Are you ready to go, David?" I answered "No," and entreated her not to let me go. I begged and prayed my aunt to befriend and protect me, for my father's sake. "Mr. Dick," said my aunt, "what shall I do with this child?" Mr. Dick considered, hesitated, brightened, and rejoined, "Have him measured for a suit of clothes directly!" "Mr. Dick," said my aunt, "give me your hand, for your commonsense is invaluable." She pulled me towards her, and said to Mr. Murdstone, "You can go when you like; I'll take my chance with the boy!" When they had gone my aunt announced that Mr. Dick would be joint guardian of me, with herself, and that I should be called Trotwood Copperfield. Thus I began my new life, in a new name, and with everything new about me. My aunt sent me to school at Canterbury, and, there being no room at the school for boarders, settled that I should board with her old lawyer, Mr. Wickfield. My aunt was as happy as I was in this arrangement. For Mr. Wickfield's house was quiet and still; and Mr. Wickfield's little housekeeper was his only daughter, Agnes, a child of about my own age, whose face, so bright and happy, was the child likeness of a woman's portrait that was on the staircase. There was a tranquility about the house, and about Agnes, a good, calm spirit, that I have never forgotten and never shall. The school I now went to was better in every way than Salem House. It seemed to me so long, however, since I had been among any companions of my own age, except Mick Walker and Mealy Potatoes, that I felt very strange at first. Whatever I had learnt had so slipped away from me that when I was examined about what I knew, I knew nothing, and was put in the lowest form of the school. But I got a little the better of my uneasiness when I went to school the next day, and a good deal the better the day after, and so shook it off, by degrees, that in less than a fortnight I was quite at home, and happy among my new companions.