Again he took both my hands and put them to his lips, while my blood ran cold within me.

     "Don't you mind talking, Pip," said he, after again drawing his sleeve over his eyes and forehead, as the click came in his throat which I well remembered,--and he was all the more horrible to me that he was so much in earnest; "you can't do better nor keep quiet, dear boy. You ain't looked slowly forward to this as I have; you wosn't prepared for this as I wos. But didn't you never think it might be me?"

     "O no, no, no," I returned, "Never, never!"

     "Well, you see it wos me, and single-handed. Never a soul in it but my own self and Mr. Jaggers."

     "Was there no one else?" I asked.

     "No," said he, with a glance of surprise: "who else should there be? And, dear boy, how good looking you have growed! There's bright eyes somewheres--eh? Isn't there bright eyes somewheres, wot you love the thoughts on?"

     O Estella, Estella!